"You will excuse me for observing that the Whitford tradespeople always have been, within my recollection, a set of pig-headed, prejudicial ignoramuses, and that I see no reason to apprehend any speedy improvement in the intelligence of that highly respectable body." "Don't laugh, Algernon. The matter is serious. You have not been troubled yet, you say. But the trouble may begin at any moment, and I should wish you to be prepared to meet it. You may have bills sent in which----" "Bills? Oh, as to that, there's no lack of them already! I must acknowledge the great alacrity and punctuality with which the mercantile classes of this town send in their weekly accounts. Oh dear yes, I have a considerable collection of those interesting documents; so many, in fact, that the other day, when Castalia was complaining of the shabbiness of the paperhangings in our dining-room, I proposed to her to cover the walls with the tradesmen's bills. It would be novel, economical, and moral; a kind of _memento mori_--a death's head at the feast! Fancy seeing your butcher's bill glaring down above the roast mutton every day, and the greengrocer's 'To account delivered,' restraining the spoon that might otherwise too lavishly dispense the contents of the vegetable dishes!" "Algy, Algy!" "Upon my honour, Minnie, I made the suggestion. But Castalia looked as grave as a judge. She didn't see it at all. The fact is, poor Cassy's sense of humour is merely rudimentary." Minnie joined her hands together on the table, and thus supported, she leant a little forward, and looked searchingly at the young man. "Algernon," she said with slow deliberation, "I begin to be afraid that the case is worse than I thought." "What do you mean?" he asked, almost roughly, and with a sudden change of colour. "I mean that you really are in difficult waters. How has it come to pass that the weekly accounts have accumulated in this way?" He laughed a little forced laugh, but he looked relieved, too. "The process is simple. They keep sending 'em in!" "And then it is said--forgive me if I appear intrusive--that you gave orders for wine and such things out of Whitford. And that does not incline the people of the place to be patient." "Well, by Jove!" exclaimed Algernon, throwing himself back in his chair and thrusting his hands into his pockets, "that is the most absurd--the most irrational--the most preposterous reason for being angry with me! They grumble when I run up a bill with them, and they are affronted when I don't!" "Does your wife understand--or--or control the household expenditure?" "Bless you, no! She has not the very vaguest ideas of anything of the kind. When she had an allowance from her uncle for her dress, my lord used to have to come down every now and then with a supplementary sum of money to get her out of debt."