e the odours of stale tobacco and beer that subtly clung to the
walls as reminders of the drink and smoke of the previous evening.

Just outside, a tangle of climbing roses hung like a delicate pink
curtain between Helmsley's eyes and the sunshine, while the busy humming
of bees in and out the fragrant hearts of the flowers, made a musical
monotony of soothing sound. He sat down and surveyed the simple scene
with a quiet sense of pleasure. He contrasted it in his memory with the
weary sameness of the breakfasts served to him in his own palatial
London residence, when the velvet-footed butler creeping obsequiously
round the table, uttered his perpetual "Tea or coffee, sir? 'Am or
tongue? Fish or heggs?" in soft sepulchral tones, as though these
comestibles had something to do with poison rather than nourishment.
With disgust at the luxury which engendered such domestic appurtenances,
he thought of the two tall footmen, whose chief duty towards the serving
of breakfast appeared to be the taking of covers off dishes and the
putting them on again, as if six-footed able-bodied manhood were not
equipped for more muscular work than that!

"We do great wrong," he said to himself--"We who are richer than what
are called the rich, do infinite wrong to our kind by tolerating so much
needless waste and useless extravagance. We merely generate mischief for
ourselves and others. The poor are happier, and far kindlier to each
other than the moneyed classes, simply because they cannot demand so
much self-indulgence. The lazy habits of wealthy men and women who
insist on getting an unnecessary number of paid persons to do for them
what they could very well do for themselves, are chiefly to blame for
all our tiresome and ostentatious social conditions. Servants must, of
course, be had in every well-ordered household--but too many of them
constitute a veritable hive of discord and worry. Why have huge houses
at all? Why have enormous domestic retinues? A small house is always
cosiest, and often prettiest, and the fewer servants, the less trouble.
Here again comes in the crucial question--Why do we spend all our best
years of youth, life, and sentiment in making money, when, so far as the
sweetest and highest things are concerned, money can give so little!"

At that moment, Prue entered with a brightly shining old brown "lustre"
teapot, and a couple of boiled eggs.

"Mis' Tranter sez you're to eat the eggs cos' they'se new-laid an'
incl