married people.

"I'll tell you what you ought to do," says Cazell to me. "You ought to
build a nice little snuggery in the country."

I object to the cost.

"Cost? Bah! that's nothing. You can always get a Building Society," says
he, enthusiastically, "to advance you _any_ sum."

I ask how these Building Societies proceed.

[Illustration: CAZELL.]

"Simply enough," says Cazell, who invariably knows everything about
anything, only if you act on his information and go wrong, he generally
denies warmly afterwards that "he ever said such a thing." "Simply
enough," he continues. "You go to the Society, you give 'em some
security,--any security will do, and you could get _that_ easily
enough." I nod cheerfully, more to encourage him to proceed, than from
any feeling of certainty as to the means of obtaining the security.
Then, having, satisfactorily to himself, disposed of this difficulty, he
continues:--"Well, your security in this case would be your title-deeds
of the house and land."

_Happy Thought._--Title-deeds.

"Then," he goes on, as if he'd been accustomed to do this sort of thing
every day, "you say how much you want. Then they ask you" (it's becoming
quite dramatic), "where's your house? You say .... wherever it is, you
know." Cazell puts it in this way, as impressing upon me that before the
Building Society I _must_ tell the truth and not pretend to them that my
house is in Bedfordshire, for example, when it isn't. "Well," he
resumes, "then they ask you what sort of a house do you intend to build?
Then, you lay your plan before them."

_Happy Thought._--The Plan of my House.

"They examine it, that is, their architect does ... they inquire about
the land ... and then they decide, whether they'll buy it for you, or
not."

("_Not_" I should think, but I don't say so.)

"Then," he goes on. "You make the purchase, and hand over the
title-deeds. Pay them a rent and a per-centage every year until the
whole is paid off, when it becomes yours."

"In fact," I put it, bluffly, to him, "I can build a house without
having any money; I mean, by getting the money from the Building
Society?"

"Precisely. Any day."

I hesitate. It really is--if Cazell is correct--much better than hiring
a house ... or taking lodgings. And what does Cazell think the cost will
be?

"Well," says he, "put it at L2,000, the outside." I reflect that the
inside, too, will be a considerable expense. "A good