A Simpleton

"Thank you, love," said Rosa; "now I know what to do; I'll not forget a word. And the train so beautifully shaped! Ah! it is only in London or Paris they can make a dress flow behind like that," etc., etc.

Dr. Staines came back to dinner in good spirits; he had found a house in Harewood Square; good entrance hall, where his gratuitous patients might sit on benches; good dining-room where his superior patients might wait; and good library, to be used as a consulting-room. Rent only eighty-five pounds per annum.

But Rosa told him that would never do; a physician must be in the fas.h.i.+onable part of the town.

"Eventually," said Christopher; "but surely at first starting--and you know they say little boats should not go too far from sh.o.r.e."

Then Rosa repeated all her friend's arguments, and seemed so unhappy at the idea of not living near her, that Staines, who had not yet said the hard word "no" to her, gave in; consoling his prudence with the reflection that, after all, Mr. Cole could put many a guinea in his way, for Mr. Cole was middle-aged,--though his wife was young,--and had really a very large practice.

So next day, the newly-wedded pair called on a house-agent in Mayfair, and his son and partner went with them to several places. The rents of houses equal to that in Harewood Square were three hundred pounds a year at least, and a premium to boot.

Christopher told him these were quite beyond the mark. "Very well," said the agent. "Then I'll show you a Bijou."

Rosa clapped her hands. "That is the thing for us. We don't want a large house, only a beautiful one, and in Mayfair."

"Then the Bijou will be sure to suit you."

He took them to the Bijou.

The Bijou had a small dining-room with one very large window in two sheets of plate gla.s.s, and a projecting balcony full of flowers; a still smaller library, which opened on a square yard enclosed. Here were a great many pots, with flowers dead or dying from neglect. On the first floor a fair-sized drawing-room, and a tiny one at the back: on the second floor, one good bedroom, and a dressing-room, or little bedroom: three garrets above.

Rosa was in ecstasies. "It is a nest," said she.

"It is a bank-note," said the agent, stimulating equal enthusiasm, after his fas.h.i.+on. "You can always sell the lease again for more money."

Christopher kept cool. "I don't want a house to sell, but to live in, and do my business; I am a physician: now the drawing-room is built over the entrance to a mews; the back rooms all look into a mews: we shall have the eternal noise and smell of a mews. My wife's rest will be broken by the carriages rolling in and out. The hall is fearfully small and stuffy. The rent is abominably high; and what is the premium for, I wonder?"

"Always a premium in Mayfair, sir. A lease is

"Oh, yes, he is," said Rosa, as boldly as a six years' wife: "he knows everything."

"Then he knows that a house of this kind at a hundred and thirty pounds a year in Mayfair is a bank-note."

Staines turned to Rosa. "The poor patients, where am I to receive them?"

"In the stable," suggested the house agent.

"Oh!" said Rosa, shocked.

"Well, then, the coach-house. Why, there's plenty of room for a brougham, and one horse, and fifty poor patients at a time: beggars musn't be choosers; if you give them physic gratis, that is enough: you ain't bound to find 'em a palace to sit down in, and hot coffee and rump steaks all round, doctor."

This tickled Rosa so that she burst out laughing, and thenceforward giggled at intervals, wit of this refined nature having all the charm of novelty for her.

They inspected the stables, which were indeed the one redeeming feature in the horrid little Bijou; and then the agent would show them the kitchen, and the new stove. He expatiated on this to Mrs. Staines. "Cook a dinner for thirty people, madam."

"And there's room for them to eat it--in the road," said Staines.

The agent reminded him there were larger places to be had, by a very simple process, viz., paying for them.

Staines thought of the large, comfortable house in Harewood Square. "One hundred and thirty pounds a year for this poky little hole?" he groaned.

"Why, it is nothing at all for a Bijou."

"But it is too much for a bandbox."

Rosa laid her hand on his arm, with an imploring glance.

"Well," said he, "I'll submit to the rent, but I really cannot give the premium, it is too ridiculous. He ought to bribe me to rent it, not I him."

"Can't be done without, sir."

"Well, I'll give a hundred pounds and no more."

"Impossible, sir."

"Then good morning. Now, dearest, just come and see the house at Harewood Square,--eighty-five pounds and no premium."

"Will you oblige me with your address, doctor?" said the agent.

"Dr. Staines, Morley's Hotel."

And so they left Mayfair.

Rosa sighed and said, "Oh, the nice little place; and we have lost it for two hundred pounds."

"Two hundred pounds is a great deal for us to throw away."

"Being near the Coles would soon have made that up to you: and such a cosey little nest."

"Well the house will not run away."

"But somebody is sure to snap it up. It is a Bijou." She was disappointed, and half inclined to pout. But she vented her feelings in a letter to her beloved Florry, and appeared at dinner as sweet as usual.

During dinner a note came from the agent, accepting Dr. Staine's offer.

He glozed the matter thus: he had persuaded the owner it was better to take a good tenant at a moderate loss, than to let the Bijou be uninhabited during the present rainy season. An a.s.signment of the lease--which contained the usual covenants--would be prepared immediately, and Dr. Staines could have possession in forty-eight hours, by paying the premium.

Rosa was delighted, and as soon as dinner was over, and the waiters gone, she came and kissed Christopher.

He smiled, and said, "Well, you are pleased; that is the princ.i.p.al thing. I have saved two hundred pounds, and that is something. It will go towards furnis.h.i.+ng."

"La! yes," said Rosa, "I forgot. We shall have to get furniture now.

How nice!" It was a pleasure the man of forecast could have willingly dispensed with; but he smiled at her, and they discussed furniture, and Christopher, whose retentive memory had picked up a little of everything, said there were wholesale upholsterers in the City who sold cheaper than the West-end houses, and he thought the best way was to measure the rooms in the Bijou, and go to the city with a clear idea of what they wanted; ask the prices of various necessary articles, and then make a list, and demand a discount of fifteen per cent on the whole order, being so considerable, and paid for in cash.

Rosa acquiesced, and told Christopher he was the cleverest man in England.

About nine o'clock Mrs. Cole came in to condole with her friend, and heard the good news. When Rosa told her how they thought of furnis.h.i.+ng, she said, "Oh no, you must not do that; you will pay double for everything. That is the mistake Johnnie and I made; and after that a friend of mine took me to the auction-rooms, and I saw everything sold--oh, such bargains; half, and less than half, their value. She has furnished her house almost entirely from sales, and she has the loveliest things in the world--such ducks of tables, and jardinieres, and things; and beautiful rare china--her house swarms with it--for an old song. A sale is the place. And then so amusing."

"Yes, but," said Christopher, "I should not like my wife to encounter a public room."