you are the one man living who can do what I want."

"Delighted to hear it," said Horace, genuinely gratified. "When did you
see any of my designs?"

"Never mind, sir. I don't decide without very good grounds. It
doesn't take me long to make up my mind, and when my mind is made
up, I act, sir, I act. And, to come to the point, I have a small
commission--unworthy, I am quite aware, of your--ah--distinguished
talent--which I should like to put in your hands."

"Is _he_ going to ask me to attend a sale for him?" thought Horace. "I'm
hanged if I do."

"I'm rather busy at present," he said dubiously, "as you may see. I'm
not sure whether----"

"I'll put the matter in a nutshell, sir--in a nutshell. My name is
Wackerbath, Samuel Wackerbath--tolerably well known, if I may say so, in
City circles." Horace, of course, concealed the fact that his visitor's
name and fame were unfamiliar to him. "I've lately bought a few acres on
the Hampshire border, near the house I'm living in just now; and I've
been thinking--as I was saying to a friend only just now, as we were
crossing Westminster Bridge--I've been thinking of building myself a
little place there, just a humble, unpretentious home, where I could run
down for the weekend and entertain a friend or two in a quiet way, and
perhaps live some part of the year. Hitherto I've rented places as I
wanted 'em--old family seats and ancestral mansions and so forth: very
nice in their way, but I want to feel under a roof of my own. I want to
surround myself with the simple comforts, the--ah--unassuming elegance
of an English country home. And you're the man--I feel more convinced of
it with every word you say--you're the man to do the job in
style--ah--to execute the work as it should be done."

Here was the long-wished-for client at last! And it was satisfactory to
feel that he had arrived in the most ordinary and commonplace course,
for no one could look at Mr. Samuel Wackerbath and believe for a moment
that he was capable of floating through an upper window; he was not in
the least that kind of person.

"I shall be happy to do my best," said Horace, with a calmness that
surprised himself. "Could you give me some idea of the amount you are
prepared to spend?"

"Well, I'm no Croesus--though I won't say I'm a pauper precisely--and,
as I remarked before, I prefer comfort to splendour. I don't think I
should be justified in going beyond--well, say sixty thousand."

"Sixty thousand!