out a sigh. Hence his wardrobe had come to include a
pair of deer-stalking breeches, very little the worse for wear. (He had
never anticipated any satisfaction in wearing a kilt).

At another time he had owned a steam yacht; and this had taught him
that he liked the sea and suffered no inconvenience from its motion.
But from the yacht itself he derived small satisfaction after he had
shown it to his friends, and been envied by poorer men for possessing
such a toy. It might have been amusing to carry these admirers about
with him in extended cruises; but they, being poor, were busy and could
not afford the time, while his rich acquaintances owned steam yachts of
their own. Moreover, though unaccustomed to sport, he had always taken
a fair amount of exercise; his liver required it; and at yachting--that
is to say, sitting on deck in a comfortable chair--he put on flesh at
an alarming rate. Therefore, from this pastime also he retired.

Though these experiments were in themselves uniformly unsuccessful, he
had not made them in vain; but, keeping his wits about him, had arrived
by a process of exhaustion at some of the essentials of pleasure; and
this, after all, was not so bad for a man who had started with no
knowledge concerning it and with a deal of false information. He knew
now that he required exercise, that he could be happy in solitude, and
that his landscape would be all the better if it neighboured on the
sea. (Of his immunity from sea-sickness he was honestly prouder than of
anything his money had been able, as yet, to purchase.) He had scarcely
made these discoveries when the lease of the Islands came into the
market.

Then, as he read the advertisement in the _Times_ newspaper, in a flash
he had divined his opportunity, had seen a happy future unrolled before
him. His error hitherto had lain, not in exchanging Finsbury Pavement
for scenes where the free elements had play, but in seeking to change
himself and do violence to his own habits of mind and body. In the
Islands he could practice, as a benevolent despot, that mastery of men
which had given him power in the city; he could devote uncontradicted
to the cause of philanthropy--or with only so much contradiction as
lent a spice to triumph--those faculties which he had been sharpening
all his life in quest of money. They remained sharp as ever, though the
old appetite had been dulled.

He was a widower. He had no ambition but his own to consult; he alone