A man a little over forty years of age had desired to take a house in London. He had lived hitherto between a cottage in the country, where he had stables and where he made it his pleasure to ride, and rooms in town off St. James’s Street. He had also two clubs, one of which he continually visited. From his thirtieth year onward he had come more often to town; he was heavier in build; he rode with less pleasure. He had taken to writing and had published more than one little study, chiefly upon the creative work of other men. He was under no compulsion to write or to do any other thing, for he had a private fortune of about £3000 a year. This he managed with some ability so that it neither increased nor diminished, and like many other Englishmen, he had wisely invested abroad, from the year 1897 onwards. Now, I say, that middle age was upon him, London controlled him more and more. He was in sympathy with the maturity of the great town, which responded to his own maturity. He could find a leisure in it which he had never found in youth. The multitude of the books and the easy access to them, the sensible and varied conversation of men of his own rank and age, and that sort of peopled quiet which supports the nights of men living in London--all these had become a sort of food to him; they greatly pleased him. So also did the physical food of London. He took an increasing pleasure in changing the choice of his wine, which (an invariable effect of age) he now distinguished. His rooms in London had thus become for now some years past more and more his home; but he had begun to feel that rooms could not be a home; and he would set up for himself; he would be a master. He would feel again and in a greater way that comfortable consciousness of self and of surroundings fitting one which a man has in early youth every time he enters his father’s house. With this purpose the man of whom I speak looked at several houses, going first to agents, but finding himself disappointed in all. He soon learned a wiser way, which was to ask friends of what houses they had heard, and then to see for himself whether he liked them, and to do this before even he knew what rent was asked. Also he would wander up and down the streets, his heavy, well-dressed figure ponderous and moving at a measured pace, and as he so wandered he would cast his eyes over houses.