Aurelius stood in his laboratory one June morning, balancing a money-bag in his chubby pink palm. He seemed tickled by some subtlety of thought, and wonderfully well pleased with his own good-humour. He smiled, locked the money-bag in a drawer that stood in a confidential cupboard, and, taking his cap and walking-staff, repaired to the street. Pacing the narrow pavement like a veritable potentate, pretentious as any peacock, yet mightily amiable from the superb self-satisfaction that roared in him like a furnace, he acknowledged the greetings of passers-by with the elevation of a hand, a solemn movement of the head. It was well to seem unutterably serious when under the eyes of the mob. Only educated folk can properly understand levity in a sage. In the Erminois, a stately highway that ran northwards from the cathedral, he halted before a mansion whose windows were rich with scutcheons and proud blazonry. Aurelius prospered with the rich. The atmosphere of the mean quarters was like a miasma to him; he loved sunlight and high places where he might bask like a lizard. He passed by a great gateway into the inner court, and was admitted into the house with that ready deference that speaks of familiarity and respect. Aurelius climbed the broad stairway, and sailed like a stately carrack into my lady’s chamber. A dame in blue and silver greeted him from an oriel. The compounder of cosmetics bowed, disposed his staff and velvet cap upon a table, and appropriated the chair the lady had assigned to him. "Superb weather, madame." "Too sultry, though I am a warm-souled person." "True, madame, true, Gilderoy would be fresher if there were no mean folk to stifle up the streets like weeds. The alleys send up such an unpleasant stench upon the breeze, that it makes the cultured sense revolt from poverty." The Lady Duessa’s lips curled approvingly, "Poverty, poverty, my dear Aurelius, is like a carcase, fit only for quicklime. If I had the rule of the place, I would make poverty a crime, and cram all our human sweepings into lazar quarters." The man of physic nodded for sympathy. "Exactly so, madame, but one would have to deal with the inevitable religious instinct." "That would be simple enough," she simpered. "I should confine religion to shadows and twinkling tapers, lights streaming in through enamelled casements upon solemn colours bowing before dreamy music; pardons and absolutions bought with a purse of gold. It is sad, Aurelius, but who doubts but that religion makes scavengers of us all? Away with your smug widows, your frouzy burgher saints, your yellow-skinned priest-hunters! I would rather have picturesque sin than vulgar piety." The man of herbs sighed like an organ pipe.