"The house seems to be completely out of repair?"
"Oh, no, not at all; I am making the worst of it, so that you shall not be disappointed. But there is the money provided to set things in order."
"Roughly speaking, what sum does the landlord propose to allow?"
"Roughly speaking, a hundred pounds or so."
"About one-third," I remarked, "of what I should judge to be necessary."
"Not at all; a great deal can be done with a hundred pounds; and my client might feel disposed to increase the amount. You can examine the house and see if it suits you, which I feel certain it will."
Here my wife broke in. She had listened impatiently to my questions, and had nodded her head in approval of every answer given by the agent to the objections I had raised.
"I am sure it will suit us," she said. "The next best thing to building a house for one's self is to have a sufficient sum of money allowed to spend on one already built; to repair it, and paint and paper it after our own taste."
"I agree with you, madam," said the agent, "and you will find the landlord not at all a hard man to deal with. He makes only one stipulation--that whoever takes the house shall live in it."
"Why, of course we should live in it," said my wife. "What on earth should we take it for if we didn't?"