The earl and the doctor of philosophy sat at breakfast in a little oak wainscoted room whose windows commanded a full view of the new galleries. In this little room the galleries had been designed; the windows had looked upon the commencement of the great work. An army of navvies had dug out the earth for the gigantic foundations. Then arose a very forest of scaffold-poles. Two huge steam engines had snorted and puffed for three whole years. A colossal steam "traveller" had ceaselessly carried great blocks of stone and long steel girders from point to point. The clink of the stone-masons' chisels had resounded year after year from morning till night. Then came the carpenters, and the noise of their busy hammers had been deafening. When not actually on the works, Lord Pit Town had viewed them from the window of his favourite room. But scaffold poles, steam engines and labourers had disappeared; the rubbish had been cleared away, and the huge white block stood out in the clear air; dominating the grey weather-stained gables of Walls End Castle much as Aladdin's palace is said to have dominated the more ancient but less magnificent residence of his father-in-law the Emperor of China. There was an air of spick-and-spanness about the whole thing that annoyed the earl. The new galleries had been finished four whole years, but they still looked painfully fresh. "I hear that I am to have the pleasure of welcoming another of your lordship's relatives this year," said the doctor of philosophy to the earl. "Yes; Wolff 'where the carcase is there shall the eagles be gathered together.' I have kept them waiting for some years, and I don't feel a bit like dying, Wolff. Though I confess I dread Hetton's critical examination. He always looks me over in his stud-groom sort of way. But I suppose, as he is my nearest relative, it is but natural he should be anxious about my health. As for the young fellow, I have never even seen him. My nephew wished to bring him, and he is about to marry. In fact he and his father will be the only married men among my direct heirs." "And does the young man love art?" "No. I think his talents are confined to spending money and getting into trouble. But my nephew tells me that he is now going to forswear sack and live cleanly." "That is what I cannot understand, my lord. I had a cold the other day, a most severe cold. I tell the young man to bring me a cup of sack; he sends to me the butler. I say to him, 'Give me the sack.' He replied to me, 'I cannot do that, sir, it's only his lordship can do that.' What is, then, this precious drink I read of in my Shakespeare--so precious, that your lordship will not trust him to his butler? And now you tell me that your nephew will drink him no more. I never see your lordship drink him. Has, then, your lordship forsworn him too?"