It was delightful and satisfying to come into the spacious and cozy livingroom, filled with overstuffed easychairs and comfortable couches, warmed by the most efficient of centralheating systems or to use one of the perfectly appointed bathrooms whose every fixture was the best money could buy and recall the dank stone floors and walls leading up to a mammoth and--from a thermal point of view--perfectly useless fireplace flanked by the coatsofarms of deadandgone gentry who were content to shuffle out on inclement mornings to answer nature's calls in chilly outhouses. So large and commodious an establishment required an enormous staff of servants, which in turn called for a housekeeper and a steward to supervise their activities, for as I have observed many times, the farther down one goes on the wagescale the more it is necessary to hire a highsalaried executive to see that the wage is earned. I cannot say in general that I ever learned to distinguish between one retainer and another, except of course my personal manservant and Burlet, the headbutler whom I hired right from under the nose of the Marquis of Arpers--his lordship being unable to match my offer. But in spite of the confusion caused by such a multiplicity of menials, I one day noticed an undergardener whose face was tantalizingly familiar. He touched his cap respectfully as I approached, but I had the curious feeling that it was a taught gesture and not one which came naturally to him. "Have you been here long, my good man?" I asked, still trying to place him. "No, sir," he answered, "about two weeks." "Funny. I'm almost certain Ive noticed you before." He shook his head and made a tentative gesture with the hoe or rake or whatever the tool was in his hand, as though he would now, with my permission, resume his labors. "What is your name?" I inquired, not believing it would jog my memory, but out of a natural politeness toward inferiors who always feel flattered by such attention. "Dinkman," he muttered. "Adam Dinkman." ... That incredibly dilapidated frontlawn, overrun with sickly devilgrass and spotted with bald patches. Mrs Dinkman's mean bargaining with a tired man who was doing no more than trying to make a living and her later domineering harshness toward someone who was in no way responsible for the misfortune which overcame her. I wondered if she were still alive or had lost her life in the Grass while an indigent on public charity. It is indeed a small world, I thought, and how far we have both come since I humbled myself in order to put food in my stomach and keep a roof over my head. "Thank you, Dinkman," I said, turning away.