d down every house that stood in their way, and did nothing to
provide room for those who were thus ejected--most probably from a
wretched place, but only, to be driven into a more wretched still. To
provide suitable dwellings for the poor he considered the most pressing
of all necessary reforms. His own fortune was not sufficient for doing
much in this way, but he set about doing what he could by purchasing
houses in which the poor lived, and putting them into the hands of
persons whom he could trust, and who were immediately responsible to him
for their proceedings: they had to make them fit for human abodes,
and let them to those who desired better accommodation, giving the
preference to those already tenants, so long as they paid their
reasonable rent, which he considered far more necessary for them to do
than for him to have done.

One day he met by appointment the owner of a small block, of which
he contemplated the purchase. They were in a dreadfully dilapidated
condition, a shame that belonged more to the owner than the inhabitants.
The man wanted to sell the houses, or at least was willing to sell them,
but put an exorbitant price upon them. Falconer expostulated.

'I know the whole of the rent these houses could bring you in,' he said,
'without making any deduction for vacancies and defalcations: what you
ask is twice as much as they would fetch if the full rent were certain.'

The poor wretch looked up at him with the leer of a ghoul. He was
dressed like a broken-down clergyman, in rusty black, with a neck-cloth
of whitey-brown.

'I admit it,' he said in good English, and a rather educated tone. 'Your
arguments are indisputable. I confess besides that so far short does
the yield come of the amount on paper, that it would pay me to give them
away. But it's the funerals, sir, that make it worth my while. I'm an
undertaker, as you may judge from my costume. I count back-rent in
the burying. People may cheat their landlord, but they can't cheat the
undertaker. They must be buried. That's the one indispensable--ain't it,
sir?'

Falconer had let him run on that he might have the measure of him. Now
he was prepared with his reply.

'You've told me your profession,' he said: 'I'll tell you mine. I am a
lawyer. If you don't let me have those houses for five hundred, which is
the full market value, I'll prosecute you. It'll take a good penny from
the profits of your coffins to put those houses in a state to satis