Are you wondering what has become of all the Man's wealth? Nay, I do not know. Sometimes I too wonder, but I have lived a long life in service, and have seen more than one great fortune slip away into chinks and clefts, and vanish quietly. So it has been with my master and mistress. At first they had much, then little, then nothing at all. Once upon a time patrons and customers used to come and give my master commissions. Now they have ceased to come. That is all. One day I asked my mistress why things were so, and she replied: "What used to be fashionable is not so now. People no longer care for the styles in architecture which they used to affect." "But what has made the fashions change?" said I. She made no answer, but burst into tears. _I_ shed no tears. Nothing matters much to me, nothing matters much to me. So long as they pay me my wages I shall stop with them, and as soon as they cease paying those wages I shall go and take service elsewhere. For many years I have done their cooking for them, but I should leave them at once, and go and cook for some one else, if my wages were to cease. In any case I shall soon have to give up working, for I am growing old, and my sight is not what it was. Some day, perhaps, I shall be dismissed--yes, told to go about my business and make room for some one else. Ah, well, what will it matter? I shall just go--that is all. Nothing matters much to me. Sometimes people are surprised at me. "It must be lonely for you," they say, "in that kitchen--alone every evening while the wind howls in the chimney, and the rats scamper and squeak." I do not know. Perhaps it _is_ lonely, only I never think of it. Why should I? My master and mistress sit alone, the same as I do, and look at one another, and listen to the wind; and I sit in my kitchen and listen to the wind also. Once upon a time young folks used to come and visit my master's little son; and then there would be such singing and laughter and scampering about the empty rooms to scare the rats! Yet no one ever came to see _me_. No, I sat alone as I am sitting now--alone, quite alone: and since I have no one to talk to I talk to myself. Nothing matters much to me. Three days ago yet another misfortune came upon this house. The young master brushed his hair, and cocked his hat as young gentlemen will do, and went out for a walk. And some rascally villain picked up a stone, and threw it at him, and split the boy's head like a cocoa-nut. Well, he was lifted up, and brought home, and now lies upon his bed--though whether to live or to die the good God alone knows. My old master and mistress wept so bitterly over him! Then they took all the books out of that bookcase yonder, and piled them upon a cart, and sent them away to be sold: and with the money they have hired a nurse, and bought medicines and grapes for the boy. But he will not touch the grapes, nor look at them, and they lie unheeded on a plate by his bedside.