n a view.

"I don't eat salmon," he remarked. The vase was now between himself and
Sabre. He again moved it, "Or cutlets."

Mabel exclaimed, "Oh, dear! Now I got this salmon in specially from
Tidborough."

"I'll have some of that ham," said Mr. Boom Bagshaw; and he arose
sulkily and strolled to the sideboard where he rather sulkily cut from a
ham in thick wedges. The house was clearly his house.

He addressed himself to Mabel. "Now in a very few weeks you'll no longer
have to get things from Tidborough, Mrs. Sabre--salmon or anything else.
The shops in Market Square are going the minute they're complete. I got
a couple of fishmongers only yesterday."

He spoke as if he had shot a brace of fishmongers and slung them over
his shoulder and flung them into Market Square. Market Square was that
portion of the Garden Home designed for the shopping centre.

"Two!" said Mabel.

"Two. I encourage competition. No one is going to sleep in the Garden
Home."

"What will all the bedrooms be used for then?" Sabre inquired.

Mr. Boom Bagshaw, who was eating his ham with a fork only, holding it at
its extremity in the tips of his fingers and occasionally flipping a
piece of ham into his mouth and swallowing it without visible
mastication, flipped in another morsel and with his right hand moved
three more vases which stood between himself and Sabre. He moved each
deliberately and set it down with a slight thump, rather as if it were a
chessman.

He directed the fork at Sabre and after an impressive moment spoke:

"You know, Sabre, I don't think you're quite alive to what it is that is
growing up about you. Flippancy is out of place. I abominate flippancy."
("Well, dash it, it's my house!" Sabre thought.) "This Garden Home is
not a speculation. It's not a fad. It's not a joke. What is it? You're
thinking it's a damned nuisance. You're right. It _is_ a damned
nuisance--"

Sabre began, "Well--"

"Now, listen, Sabre. It _is_ a damned nuisance; and I put it to you
that, when a toad is discovered embedded in a solid mass of coal or
stone, that coal or stone, when it was slowly forming about that toad,
was a damned nuisance to the toad."

Sabre asked, "Well, am I going to be discovered embedded--"

"Now, listen, Sabre. Another man in my place would say he did not intend
to be personal. I do intend to be personal. I always am personal. I say
that this Garden Home is springing up about you and that you are not
realising what i