hing be more cruelly unjust than this
leasehold system? I assure you, it keeps me awake at night; it really
does.'

The tenor of his conversation proved that Mr. Spicer had no intention of
leaving the house until he was legally obliged to do so. More than once he
had an interview with his late uncle's solicitor, and each time he came
back with melancholy brow. All the details of the story were now familiar
to him; he knew all about the lawsuits which had ruined the property.
Whenever he spoke of the ground-landlord, known to him only by name, it was
with a severity such as he never permitted himself on any other subject.
The ground-landlord was, to his mind, an embodiment of social injustice.

'Never in my life, Mr. Goldthorpe, did I grudge any payment of money as I
grudge the ground-rent of these houses. I feel it as robbery, sir, as sheer
robbery, though the sum is so small. When, in my ignorance, the matter was
first explained to me, I wondered why my uncle had continued to pay this
rent, the houses being of no profit to him. But now I understand, Mr.
Goldthorpe; the sense of possession is very sweet. Property's property,
even when it's leasehold and in ruins. I grudge the ground-rent bitterly,
but I feel, sir, that I couldn't bear to lose my houses until the fatal
moment, when lose them I must.'

In August the thermometer began to mark high degrees. Goldthorpe found it
necessary to dispense with coat and waistcoat when he was working, and at
times a treacherous languor whispered to him of the delights of idleness.
After one particularly hot day, he and his landlord smoked together in the
dusking garden, both unusually silent. Mr. Spicer's eye dwelt upon the
great heap of weeds which was resulting from his labour; an odour somewhat
too poignant arose from it upon the close air. Goldthorpe, who had been
rather headachy all day, was trying to think into perfect clearness the
last chapters of his book, and found it difficult.

'You know,' he said all at once, with an impatient movement, 'we ought to
be at the seaside.'

'The seaside?' echoed his companion, in surprise. 'Ah, it's a long time
since I saw the sea, Mr. Goldthorpe. Why, it must be--yes, it is at least
twenty years.'

'Really? I've been there every year of my life till this. One gets into the
way of thinking of luxuries as necessities. I tell you what it is. If I
sell my book as soon as it's done, we'll have a few days somewhere on the
south coast toget