ire, and
Harry Clavering was forced to own to himself that he had never been more
comfortable.

"Ah," said Burton, stretching out his slippered feet, "why can't it all
be after-dinner, instead of that weary room at the Adelphi?"

"And all old port?" said Jones.

"Yes, and all old port. You are not such an ass as to suppose that a man
in suggesting to himself a continuance of pleasure suggests to himself
also the evils which are supposed to accompany such pleasure. If I took
much of the stuff I should get cross and sick, and make a beast of
myself but then what a pity it is that it should be so."

"You wouldn't like much of it, I think," said his wife.

"That is it," said he. "We are driven to work because work never palls
on us, whereas pleasure always does. What a wonderful scheme it is when
one looks at it all. No man can follow, pleasure long continually. When
a man strives to do so, he turns his pleasure at once into business, and
works at that. Come, Harry, we musn't have another bottle, as Jones
would go to sleep among the type." Then they all went up stairs
together. Harry, before he went away, was taken again up into the
nursery, and there kissed the two little girls in their cots. When he
was outside the nursery door, on the top of the stairs, Mrs. Burton took
him by the hand. "You'll come to us often," said she, "and make yourself
at home here, will you not?" Harry could not but say that he would.
Indeed he did so without hesitation, almost with eagerness, for he had
liked her and had liked her house. "We think of you, you know," she
continued, "quite as one of ourselves. How could it be otherwise when
Flo is the dearest to us of all beyond our own?"

"It makes me so happy to hear you say so," said he.

"Then come here and talk about her. I want Theodore to feel that you are
his brother; it will be so important to you in the business that it
should be so." After that he went away, and as he walked back along
Piccadilly, and then up through the regions of St. Giles to his house in
Bloomsbury Square, he satisfied himself that the life of Onslow Crescent
was a better manner of life than that which was likely to prevail in
Bolton Street.

When he was gone his character was of course discussed between the
husband and wife in Onslow Crescent. "What do you think of him?" said
the husband.

"I like him so much! He is so much nicer than you told me--so much
pleasanter and easier; and I have no doubt he is as