where authentic sole was always obtainable, though it was advisable not
to buy it on Monday mornings, of course. Putney was a place where you
lived unvexed, untroubled. You had your little house, and your
furniture, and your ability to look after yourself at all ends, and your
knowledge of the prices of everything, and your deep knowledge of human
nature, and your experienced forgivingness towards human frailties. You
did not keep a servant, because servants were so complicated, and
because they could do nothing whatever as well as you could do it
yourself. You had a charwoman when you felt idle or when you chose to
put the house into the back-yard for an airing. With the charwoman, a
pair of gloves for coarser work, and gas stoves, you 'made naught' of
domestic labour. You were never worried by ambitions, or by envy, or by
the desire to know precisely what the wealthy did and to do likewise.
You read when you were not more amusingly occupied, preferring
illustrated papers and magazines. You did not traffic with art to any
appreciable extent, and you never dreamed of letting it keep you awake
at night. You were rich, for the reason that you spent less than you
received. You never speculated about the ultimate causes of things, or
puzzled yourself concerning the possible developments of society in the
next hundred years. When you saw a poor old creature in the street you
bought a box of matches off the poor old creature. The social phenomenon
which chiefly roused you to just anger was the spectacle of wealthy
people making money and so taking the bread out of the mouths of people
who needed It. The only apparent blots on existence at Putney were the
noise and danger of the High Street, the dearth of reliable laundries,
the manners of a middle-aged lady engaged at the post office (Mrs.
Challice liked the other ladies in the post office), and the absence of
a suitable man in the house.

Existence at Putney seemed to Priam Farll to approach the Utopian. It