Pitt was now to inhabit the Pay Office, and he gave notice to Ann, without any previous quarrel so far as we know, that they would henceforth live apart. In any case, Pitt's accession to office thus enabled him to put a convenient period to what had probably become a fretting and irksome arrangement; but Walpole notes at this time that there is gossip about 'the new Paymaster's ménage,' possibly Grattan's tradition of 'This House to Let.' This sort of chit-chat is, however, the inevitable accompaniment of a man in Pitt's position and need not again be dwelt upon. Two of his early patrons also quarrelled with him: the Prince of Wales and Cobham. But Pitt, for the moment at any rate, could afford to do without either. A more delicate question required his attention. There were habitual practices in the Pay Office which brought in immense profits to the Paymaster. It was the custom of that official to take poundage on all subsidies paid to foreign princes, and to use the great balances at his credit for his own purposes of speculation. As to this second method Pitt had no doubts, and rejected the idea. As to the first he seems, on entering upon office, to have consulted Pelham.[179] Pelham replied that Winnington had taken these perquisites, but that he himself when Paymaster had not; Pitt could do as he chose. 'Such a manner of stating it left scarce an option in any but the basest of mankind,' remarks Camelford with characteristic bitterness. Pitt at any rate did not hesitate, and refused to take a farthing beyond his salary, which, in truth, was splendid enough. But the indirect profits of the Paymastership, which earlier in the century had founded the dukedom of Chandos and the palace of Canons, and which later endowed the peerage of Henry Fox and the glories of his exquisite residence at Kensington, besides furnishing great fortunes for his graceless sons to squander at the gaming-table, were, as Dr. Johnson would have said, beyond the dreams of avarice. It was held in that day of loose political morality to be noble, if not unique, for a man with a patrimony of a hundred a year and a legacy of ten thousand pounds to refuse to receive such profits.[180]