we sat together in his magnificently
furnished dining-room. We had lighted our cigars at the silver lamp. The
butler had withdrawn.

"These cigars we are smoking," my friend suddenly remarked, a propos
apparently of nothing, "they cost me five shillings apiece, taking them
by the thousand."

"I can quite believe it," I answered; "they are worth it."

"Yes, to you," he replied, almost savagely. "What do you usually pay for
your cigars?"

We had known each other years ago. When I first met him his offices
consisted of a back room up three flights of stairs in a dingy by-street
off the Strand, which has since disappeared. We occasionally dined
together, in those days, at a restaurant in Great Portland Street, for
one and nine. Our acquaintanceship was of sufficient standing to allow
of such a question.

"Threepence," I answered. "They work out at about twopence
three-farthings by the box."

"Just so," he growled; "and your twopenny-three-farthing weed gives you
precisely the same amount of satisfaction that this five shilling cigar
affords me. That means four and ninepence farthing wasted every time I
smoke. I pay my cook two hundred a year. I don't enjoy my dinner as much
as when it cost me four shillings, including a quarter flask of Chianti.
What is the difference, personally, to me whether I drive to my office
in a carriage and pair, or in an omnibus? I often do ride in a bus: it
saves trouble. It is absurd wasting time looking for one's coachman,
when the conductor of an omnibus that passes one's door is hailing one
a few yards off. Before I could afford even buses--when I used to
walk every morning to the office from Hammersmith--I was healthier. It
irritates me to think how hard I work for no earthly benefit to myself.
My money pleases a lot of people I don't care two straws about, and
who are only my friends in the hope of making something out of me. If I
could eat a hundred-guinea dinner myself every night, and enjoy it four
hundred times as much as I used to enjoy a five-shilling dinner, there
would be some sense in it. Why do I do it?"

I had never heard him talk like this before. In his excitement he rose
from the table, and commenced pacing the room.

"Why don't I invest my money in the two and a half per cents?" he
continued. "At the very worst I should be safe for five thousand a
year. What, in the name of common sense, does a man want with more? I am
always saying to myself, I'll do it; why don't