at bringing home his money to his wife than Bunce,
barring that shilling. If he'd drink it, which he never does, I
think I'd bear it better than give it to that nasty Union. And
young Jack writes as well as his father, pretty nigh, Mr. Finn,
which is a comfort,"--Mr. Bunce was a journeyman scrivener at a law
stationer's,--"and keeps his self; but he don't bring home his money,
nor yet it can't be expected, Mr. Finn. I know what the young 'uns
will do, and what they won't. And Mary Jane is quite handy about the
house now,--only she do break things, which is an aggravation; and
the hot water shall be always up at eight o'clock to a minute, if I
bring it with my own hand, Mr. Finn."

And so he was established once more in his old rooms in Great
Marlborough Street; and as he sat back in the arm-chair, which he
used to know so well, a hundred memories of former days crowded back
upon him. Lord Chiltern for a few months had lived with him; and then
there had arisen a quarrel, which he had for a time thought would
dissolve his old life into ruin. Now Lord Chiltern was again his very
intimate friend. And there had used to sit a needy money-lender whom
he had been unable to banish. Alas! alas! how soon might he now
require that money-lender's services! And then he recollected how he
had left these rooms to go into others, grander and more appropriate
to his life when he had filled high office under the State. Would
there ever again come to him such cause for migration? And would he
again be able to load the frame of the looking-glass over the fire
with countless cards from Countesses and Ministers' wives? He had
opened the oyster for himself once, though it had closed again with
so sharp a snap when the point of his knife had been withdrawn. Would
he be able to insert the point again between those two difficult
shells? Would the Countesses once more be kind to him? Would
drawing-rooms be opened to him, and sometimes opened to him and to
no other? Then he thought of certain special drawing-rooms in which
wonderful things had been said to him. Since that he had been a
married man, and those special drawing-rooms and those wonderful
words had in no degree actuated him in his choice of a wife. He had
left all those things of his own free will, as though telling himself
that there was a better life than they offered to him. But was he
sure that he had found it to be better? He had certainly sighed for
the gauds which he had left. Wh