In this particular case his entire expenses reached exactly £5 3_s._, and what do you suppose was the good man's profit upon that small item? Precisely £62 7_s._! The process is simple, Jos. Larkin made his own handsome estimate of his expenses, and the value of his time to and from London, and then he charged this in its entirety—shall we say integrity—to each client separately. In this little excursion he was concerned for no less than five.
His expenses, I say, reached exactly £5 3_s_. But he had a right to go to Dondale's if he pleased, instead of that cheap hostelry near Covent Garden. He had a right to a handsome lunch and a handsome dinner, instead of that economical fusion of both meals into one, at a cheap eating-house, in an out-of-the-way quarter. He had a right to his pint of high-priced wine, and to accomplish his wanderings in a cab, instead of, as the Italians say, 'partly on foot, and partly walking.' Therefore, and on this principle, Mr. Jos. Larkin had 'no difficulty' in acting. His savings, if the good man chose to practise self-denial, were his own—and it was a sort of problem while he stayed, and interested him curiously—keeping down his bill in matters which he would not have dreamed of denying himself at home.
The only client among his wealthy supporters, who ever went in a grudging spirit into one of these little bills of Jos. Larkin's, was old Sir Mulgrave Bracton—the defunct parent of the Sir Harry, with whom we are acquainted.
'Don't you think, Mr. Larkin, you could perhaps reduce this, just a little?'
'Ah, the expenses?'
'Well, yes.'
Mr. Jos. Larkin smiled—the smile said plainly, 'what would he have me live upon, and where?' We do meet persons of this sort, who would fain 'fill our bellies with the husks' that swine digest; what of that—we must remember who we are—gentlemen—and answer this sort of shabbiness, and every other endurable annoyance, as Lord Chesterfield did—with a bow and a smile.
'I think so,' said the baronet, in a bluff, firm way.
'Well, the fact is, when I represent a client, Sir Mulgrave Bracton, of a certain rank and position, I make it a principle—and, as a man of business, I find it tells—to present myself in a style that is suitably handsome.'
'Oh! an expensive house—where was this, now?'