a modest little affair in
the country. It has a small meadow to the south and the road to the
north. There are some evergreens about the lawn. The kitchen garden
is large but most indifferently tended; indeed it is partly through
dissatisfaction with a slovenly gardener that I decided to leave. The
nearest town is a mile distant; the nearest station two miles and a
half. We have no light laid on except in a large room in the garden,
where acetylene gas has been installed.

I am telling you these facts as concisely as I told them to the agent.
He took them down one by one and said, "Yes." Having no interest in
anything but the truth, I was as plain with him as I could be.

"Yes," he said, "no gas anywhere but in garden-room."

"Yes, small paddock, about two acres, to the south."

"Yes, one mile from nearest town."

I was charmed with his easy receptivity and went away content.

A few days later I received the description of the house which the
agent had prepared for his clients. Being still interested in nothing
but the truth I was electrified.

"This very desirable residence," it began. No great harm in that.

"In heart of most beautiful county in England," it continued. Nothing
very serious to quarrel with there; tastes must always differ; but it
puts the place in a new light.

"Surrounded by pleasure-grounds." Here I was pulled up very short. My
little lawn with its evergreens, my desolate cabbage-stalks, my tiny
paddock--these to be so dignified! And where do the agents get their
phrases? Is there a Thesaurus of the trade, profession, calling,
industry or mystery? "Garden" is a good enough word for any man who
lives in his house and is satisfied, but a man who wants a house can
be lured to look at it only if it has pleasure-grounds: is that the
position? Does an agent in his own home refer to the garden in
that way? If his wife is named Maud does he sing, "Come into the
pleasure-grounds"?

"Surrounded," too. I was so careful to say that the paddock and so
forth were on one side and the road on the other.

I read on: "Situated in the old-world village of Blank." And I had
been scrupulous in stating that we were a mile distant--situated in
point of fact in a real village of our own, with church, post-office,
ancient landau and all the usual appurtenances. And "old world"! What
is "old world"? There must be some deadly fascination in the epithet,
for no agent can refrain from using it; but what does it mean