of a large house, in one of those quiet streets that proclaim the owners
do not wish to be made by fashionable situations--streets in which, if
you have a large house, it is supposed to be because you can afford one.
He was very particular in its being a respectable street--Great George
Street, Westminster, was the one he selected.

No frippery or baubles, common to the mansions of young bachelors--no
buhl, and marquetrie, and Sevres china, and cabinet pictures,
distinguished the large dingy drawing-rooms of Lumley Ferrers. He
bought all the old furniture a bargain of the late tenant--tea-coloured
chintz curtains, and chairs and sofas that were venerable and solemn
with the accumulated dust of twenty-five years. The only things about
which he was particular were a very long dining-table that would hold
four-and-twenty, and a new mahogany sideboard. Somebody asked him why
he cared about such articles. "I don't know," said he "but I observe
all respectable family-men do--there must be something in it--I shall
discover the secret by and by."

In this house did Mr. Ferrers ensconce himself with two middle-aged
maidservants, and a man out of livery, whom he chose from a multitude of
candidates, because the man looked especially well fed. Having thus
settled himself, and told every one that the lease of his house was for
sixty-three years, Lumley Ferrers made a little calculation of his
probable expenditure, which he found, with good management, might amount
to about one-fourth more than his income.

"I shall take the surplus out of my capital," said he, "and try the
experiment for five years; if it don't do, and pay me profitably, why,
then either men are not to be lived upon, or Lumley Ferrers is a much
duller clog than he thinks himself!"