euner; or the poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes,
and who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries
ready, which my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great
house tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed:
as they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself,
he sends plenty of other souls thither.

Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all such of Miss
Crawley's tradesmen and purveyors as chose to serve them. Some were
willing enough, especially the poor ones. It was wonderful to see the
pertinacity with which the washerwoman from Tooting brought the cart
every Saturday, and her bills week after week. Mr. Raggles himself had
to supply the greengroceries. The bill for servants' porter at the
Fortune of War public house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer.
Every servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and thus
kept up perforce an interest in the house. Nobody in fact was paid.
Not the blacksmith who opened the lock; nor the glazier who mended the
pane; nor the jobber who let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it;
nor the butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals which
roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the servants who ate it:
and this I am given to understand is not unfrequently the way in which
people live elegantly on nothing a year.

In a little town such things cannot be done without remark. We know
there the quantity of milk our neighbour takes and espy the joint or
the fowls which are going in for his dinner. So, probably, 200 and 202
in Curzon Street might know what was going on in the house between
them, the servants communicating through the area-railings; but Crawley
and his wife and his friends did not know 200 and 202. When you came to
201 there was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a good dinner, and a
jolly shake of the hand from the host and hostess there, just for all
the world as if they had been undisputed masters of three or four
thousand a year--and so they were, not in money, but in produce and
labour--if they did not pay for the mutton, they had it: if they did
not give bullion in exchange for their wine, how should we know? Never
was better claret at any man's table than at honest Rawdon's; dinners
more gay and neatly served. His drawing-rooms were the prettiest,
little, modest salons conceivable: they were decorated with the
greatest taste, and a