"All that messuage dwelling-house and premises now standing on part of the said parcel of ground" was the phrase in the assignment of lease, although it only meant Number Twenty-seven Mulberry Street, Old Ford, containing five rooms and a wash-house, and sharing a dirty front wall with the rest of the street on the same side. The phrase was a very fine one, and, with others more intricate, lent not a little to the triumph and the perplexity the transaction filled old Jack Randall withal. The business was a conjunction of purchase and mortgage, whereby old Jack Randall, having thirty pounds of his own, had, after half-an-hour of helpless stupefaction in a solicitor's office in Cornhill, bought a house for two hundred and twenty pounds, and paid ten pounds for stamps and lawyer's fees. The remaining two hundred pounds had been furnished by the Indubitable Perpetual Building Society, on the security of a mortgage; and the loan, with its interest, was to be repaid in monthly instalments of two pounds and fourpence during twelve years. Thus old Jack Randall designed to provide for the wants and infirmities of age; and the outright purchase, he argued, was a thing of mighty easy accomplishment. For the house let at nine shillings a week, which was twenty-three pounds eight shillings a year; and the mortgage instalments, with the ground rent of three pounds a year, only came to twenty-seven pounds four, leaving a difference of three pounds sixteen, which would be more than covered by a saving of eighteenpence a week: certainly not a difficult saving for a man with a regular job and no young family, who had put by thirty pounds in little more than three years. Thus on many evenings old Jack Randall and his wife would figure out the thing, wholly forgetting rates and taxes and repairs. Old Jack stood on the pavement of Cornhill, and stared at the traffic. When he remembered that Mrs. Randall was by his side, he said, "Well, mother, we done it;" and his wife replied, "Yus, fa', you're a lan'lord now." Hereat he chuckled and began to walk eastward. For to be a landlord is the ultimate dignity. There is no trouble, no anxiety in the world if you are a landlord; and there is no work. You just walk round on Monday mornings (or maybe you even drive in a trap), and you collect your rents: eight and six, or nine shillings, or ten shillings, as the case may be. And there you are! It is better than shopkeeping, because the money comes by itself; and it is infinitely more genteel. Also, it is better than having money in a bank and drawing interest; because the house cannot run away as is the manner of directors, nor dissolve into nothingness as is the way of banks. And here was he, Jack Randall, walking down Leadenhall Street a landlord. He mounted a tram-car at Aldgate, and all things were real. II.