He had no particular aptitude for trade, and that by which he lived
(he had entered upon it thirty years ago rather by accident than
choice) was thoroughly distasteful to him. As a dealer in
pianofortes, he came into contact with a class of people who
inspired him with a savage contempt, and of late years his business
had suffered considerably from the competition of tradesmen who knew
nothing of such conflicts between sentiment and interest. A majority
of his customers obtained their pianos on the 'hire-purchase
system,' and oftener than not, they were persons of very small or
very precarious income, who, rabid in the pursuit of gentility,
signed agreements they had little chance of fulfilling; when in
pecuniary straits, they either raised money upon the instruments, or
allowed them to fall into the hands of distraining creditors.
Inquiry into the circumstances of a would-be customer sometimes had
ludicrous results; a newly-married couple, for instance, would be
found tenanting two top-floor rooms, the furnishing whereof seemed
to them incomplete without the piano of which their friends and
relatives boasted. Not a few professional swindlers came to the
office; confederate rogues, vouching for each other's
respectability, got possession of pianos merely to pawn or sell
them, having paid no more than the first month's charge. It was Mr
Lord's experience that year by year the recklessness of the vulgar
became more glaring, and deliberate fraud more artful. To-day he had
successfully prosecuted a man who seemed to have lived for some time
on the hirepurchase system, and it made him unusually cheerful.

'You don't think of going to see the Queen to-morrow?' said his
daughter, smiling.