ney House, and now nothing much else beside.
Built upon a flouting of a common law, it had lived to see the westward
course of progress, deaf to sentiment as ever, kick it far astern. Long
since had the world of fashion deserted it to its memories. Desolate and
mice-ridden stood the fading pile in a neighborhood where further decay
was hardly possible, enveloped by failure and dirt and poverty, misery
and sin and the sound of unholy revelry by night. 'The lion and the
lizard keep the courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep.' And the
vast moulded corridors, historied with great names, echoed to the feet
of Garlands, Vivians, and Goldnagels, and over the boards once ennobled
by the press of royal feet, a shabby young man sat writing into a book
with a villainous pen, as follows:

Rent $12.
Board 20.
Laundry 3.25

Dr. Vivian had, in short, induced himself to the casting-up of his
monthly accounts, a task of weariness and travail. As to-morrow was the
first day of the year, it was natural that he should thus occupy his
half-hour of leisure, but as he was unmethodical by nature it was also
natural that he should be casting up the account for November, December
(which included Christmas) being as yet unlooked into. Jottings on loose
bits of paper supplied the necessary data, or didn't, as the case
might be.

The young man scratched his head, and continued:

Car-tickets $1.25
Tobacco .40
Soap .15
Shaving ditto .19
Gas 2.40
Pencils .03

"Aha!" said V. Vivian, after a considerable interval; and penned
triumphantly:

Matches .05
Beads (Corinne) .49

Followed a long pause.

On the opposite, or left-hand, page of the ledger there stood:

Income 50.
Receipts 6.40
-----
Total 56.40

Vivian's dead father, though the absent-minded inventor of the turbine
that would never quite work, had somehow contrived not to make away with
every penny of his wife's Beirne inheritance. Very few unsuccessful
inventors could say as much. And this fact accounted for the
complicating term "Income," whose regular presence in the budget was
certainly a trifle awkward for the despiser of property, aligning him
out of hand with the wealthy classes; but to the individual was
undoubtedly most comforting, since it set a m