lish. I could
not rise to it and do myself justice. I am, I suppose, too
self-conscious and shy.

"And soon we roared into lights and asphalt pavements and the heavy
traffic. We crossed Marylebone Road and flew down Baker Street. Even I,
ignorant as I was, had to admire the way my brother manoeuvred his
huge machine round the buses and cabs. It was skill, sheer skill, with a
dash of luck that was very like genius. We were in Piccadilly soon after
and then, turning into a quiet street, we stopped and the engine stopped
too. A man in livery came running down from the house and I followed my
brother up the steps into a richly furnished hall, with Sheraton chairs
and Persian rugs and oriental vases. Frank took several letters and a
telegram from a green-baize board with pink tape bands cutting it into a
diamond-pattern, and beckoned me to follow him upstairs. I did so, and
we went into what he had called his 'digs.'

"You must understand, of course, that I am no judge of the way the rich
live. I can say truthfully that my tastes are simple. If I had millions
I really don't know that I should buy very much. Most probably I should
be a miser as regards my own personal expenses. But for all that I could
see that my brother's apartment was extraordinarily rich in its
appointments. There were so many details you could not imitate cheaply.
A man could sit in those rooms, and eat in those rooms and go to bed
there and feel that he was rich. He might even feel happy, for they were
not only rich and convenient, but comfortable. I was left in a deep
leather chair by a wood fire burning in a bronze grate, in a room with
chocolate-distempered walls hung with prints in black frames and one or
two water-colours in white frames. I looked across at a small cabinet of
books just above a writing table covered with many implements in bronze
and ivory. For a moment I was reminded of those model rooms in
department stores. I suppose that was unfair, but my sea-training had
taught me that many tools generally mean a bad workman. Somehow, the
moment the rich man blunders into any department of the world's labour,
his wealth shows at a disadvantage. And gold pens and silver inkpots and
jade paper-weights are as incongruous as ivory-handled sledge-hammers
and rose-wood jack-planes, when you come to think of it.

"And if I were to judge such ways of living by that one experience, I
should say that a man would eventually lose his sense of interior