"Go along with you," chuckled Elbraham. "I say, draw it mild. Of course you'll make your bit of commission with the furniture people; but draw it mild." Litton flushed with annoyance and indignation, probably on account of his having received a promise of a cheque for two hundred pounds from a firm if he placed the decorating and furnishing of Mr Elbraham's new mansion in their hands. A look from Lady Littletown quieted him, and that lady laughed most heartily. "Oh, you funny man, Elbraham! really you are, you know, a very funny man." "Oh, I don't know," chuckled the financier; "I like my joke. But look here, Litton, I don't get married every day, and want to do it well. I'm not going to put on the screw, I can tell you. You furnish the place spiff, and bring me the bills afterwards, and I'll give you cheques for the amounts. If there is a bit of discount, have it and welcome; I shan't complain so long as the thing is done well." So Arthur Litton contented himself with calling the financier "a coarse beast," declined to be more fully offended, and aided by Lady Littletown, who worked hard for nothing but the _kudos_, furnished the house in admirable style, received the cheques from Elbraham, who really did pay without grumbling, and soothed his injured feelings with the very substantial commission which he received. Upon one part of the decorations Lady Littletown prided herself immensely, and that was upon the addition to the drawing-room of a very spacious conservatory built upon the model of her own; and this she laboured hard to fill with choice foliage plants and gaily petalled exotics of her own selection. Her carriage was seen daily at the principal florists', and Elbraham had to write a very handsome cheque for what he called the "greenstuff"; but it was without a murmur, and he smiled with satisfaction as Lady Littletown triumphantly led him in to see the result of her toil. "Yes," he said, "tip-top--beats the C.P. hollow! Puts one a little in mind of what the Pantheon used to be when I was a boy." "But, my dear Elbraham, is that _all_ you have to say?" exclaimed her ladyship. "Well, since you put it like that, Lady Littletown, I won't shilly-shally." "No, don't--pray don't. I like to hear you speak out, Elbraham--you are so original." "Oh, I am, am I?" he said. "Well, you know--well, I was going to say, don't you think some of those statues are a little too prononsay, as you people call it, you know?" "Naughty man!" exclaimed her ladyship. "I will not have fault found with a thing, especially as I brought our sweet Clotilde here, and she was perfectly charmed with all she saw. The flowers are really, really--" "Well, they are not amiss," said the financier; and he went up to a wreath of stephanotis with such evident intention of picking a "buttonhole" that Lady Littletown hooked him with the handle of her sunshade, uttering a scream of horror the while.