_garcon_.

"There is nothing respectable in lodgings and a cab," said Ferrers to
himself--that "_self_" was his grand confidant!--"nothing stationary.
Such are the appliances of a here-to-day-gone-to-morrow kind of life.
One never looks substantial till one pays rates and taxes, and has a
bill with one's butcher!"

Accordingly, without saying a word to anybody, Ferrers took a long lease
of a large house, in one of those quiet streets that proclaim the owners
do not wish to be made by fashionable situations--streets in which, if
you have a large house, it is supposed to be because you can afford one.
He was very particular in its being a respectable street--Great George
Street, Westminster, was the one he selected.

No frippery or baubles, common to the mansions of young bachelors--no
buhl, and marquetrie, and Sevres china, and cabinet pictures,
distinguished the large dingy drawing-rooms of Lumley Ferrers. He bought
all the old furniture a bargain of the late tenant--tea-coloured chintz
curtains, and chairs and sofas that were venerable and solemn with the
accumulated dust of twenty-five years. The only things about which
he was particular were a very long dining-table that would hold
four-and-twenty, and a new mahogany sideboard. Somebody asked him why
he cared about such articles. "I don't know," said he "but I observe
all respectable family-men do--there must be something in it--I shall
discover the secret by and by."

In this house did Mr. Ferrers ensconce himself with two middle-aged
maidservants, and a man out of livery, whom he chose from a multitude
of candidates, because the man looked especially well fed. Having thus
settled himself, and told every one that the lease of his house was
for sixty-three years, Lumley Ferrers made a little calculation of his
probable expenditure, which he found, with good management, might amount
to about one-fourth more than his income.

"I shall take the surplus out of my capital," said he, "and try the
experiment for five years; if it don't do, and pay me profitably, why,
then either men are not to be lived upon, or Lumley Ferrers is a much
duller clog than he thinks himself!"

Mr. Ferrers had deeply studied the character of his uncle, as a prudent
speculator studies the qualities of a mine in which he means to invest
his capital, and much of his present proceedings was intended to act
upon the uncle as well as upon the world. He saw that the more he could
obtain for him