id he, gazing at Hugo. 'But I believe you
really do understand what a shop ought to be.'

'I believe I do,' Hugo concurred. 'And I want one.'

'You shall have it!' said the youth.

And Hugo had it, though not for anything like the sum he had named.

The four frontages of his land exceeded in all a quarter of a mile. The
frontage to Sloane Street alone was five hundred feet. It was this
glorious stretch of expensive earth which inflamed the architect's
imagination.

'But we must set back the facade twenty feet at least,' he said; and
added, 'That will give you a good pavement.'

'Young man,' cried Hugo, 'do you know how much this land has stood me in
a foot?'

'I neither know nor care,' answered the youth. 'All I say is, what's the
use of putting up a decent building unless people can see it?'

Hugo yielded. He felt as though, having given the genius something to
play with, he must not spoil the game. The game included twelve
thousand pounds paid to budding sculptors for monumental groups of a
symbolic tendency; it included forests of onyx pillars and pillars of
Carrara marble; it included ceilings painted by artists who ought to
have been R.A.'s, but were not; and it included a central court of vast
dimensions and many fountains, whose sole purpose was to charm the eye
and lure the feet of customers who wanted a rest from spending money.
Whenever Hugo found the game over-exciting, he soothed himself by
dwelling upon the wonderful plan which the artist had produced, of his
extraordinary grasp of practical needs, and his masterly solution of the
various complicated problems which continually presented themselves.

After the last bit of scaffolding was removed and the machine in full
working order, Hugo beheld it, and said emphatically, 'This will do.'

All London stood amazed, but not at the austere beauty of the whole, for
only a few connoisseurs could appreciate that. What amazed London was
the fabulous richness, the absurd spaciousness, the extravagant
perfection of every part of the immense organism.

You could stroll across twenty feet of private tessellated pavement,
enter jewelled portals with the assistance of jewelled commissionaires,
traverse furlong after furlong of vistas where nought but man was vile,
sojourn by the way in the concert-hall, the reading-room, or the
picture-gallery, smoke a cigarette in the court of fountains, write a
letter in the lounge, and finally ask to be directed to the stat