JOHN AND JANE


If you be built on a grand scale, there's always people to feel the
greatness, and though, when you hap to be a knave, their respect is a bit
one-sided, still there it is: greatness will be granted.

In the case of John Warner, he weren't a knave, but his greatness, so to
call it, took the form of such a complete and wondrous selfishness that
you was bound to own a touch of genius in the masterful way he bent all
things to his purpose and came out top over his neighbours. The man was an
only son, and what might have been chastened in his youth was fostered by
a silly mother, who fell in love with his fine appearance and never denied
him a pleasure she could grant. And his father weren't no wiser, so when,
at five-and-twenty, he found himself an orphan and Wych Elm Farm his own,
lock, stock, and barrel, young John Warner come to his kingdom with a
steadfast determination to get the best he could for himself out of life
and make it run to his own pattern so far as unsleeping wit of man could
do.

He married a pretty woman with a bit of money and he altered a good few of
his father's ways and used Jane Slowcombe's dowry to buy up a hundred
acres alongside his own. The land had been neglected and wanted patience
and cash; but where his lasting interests were concerned, John never
lacked for one, nor stinted the other. He was a clever man and a charming
man, and his cleverness and his charm appeared in many ways. Over the
steel hand of sleepless selfishness John drew the velvet glove of good
manners and nice speech. He created the false idea that he never wanted to
do more than give and take in the properest spirit you could wish. He