'Five per cent of ninety pounds is four pounds ten shillings, said Mr Levy cheerfully. 'You can pay now or on receipt of your first term's salary. If you pay now there is a reduction of 15 per cent. That would be three pounds six shillings and sixpence.
'I'll pay you when I get my wages, said Paul.
'Just as you please, said Mr Levy. 'Only too glad to have been of use to you.
CHAPTER II Llanabba Castle
Llanabba Castle presents two quite different aspects, according as you approach it from the Bangor or the coast road. From the back it looks very much like any other large country house, with a great many windows and a terrace, and a chain of glass‑houses and the roofs of innumerable nondescript kitchen buildings, disappearing into the trees. But from the front ‑ and that is how it is approached from Llanabba station ‑ it is formidably feudal; one drives past at least a mile of machicolated wall before reaching the gates; these are towered and turreted and decorated with heraldic animals and a workable portcullis. Beyond them at the end of the avenue stands the Castle, a model of medieval impregnability.
The explanation of this rather striking contrast is simple enough. At the time of the cotton famine in the sixties Llanabba House was the property of a prosperous Lancashire millowner. His wife could not bear to think of their men starving; in fact, she and her daughters organized a little bazaar in their aid, though without any very substantial results. Her husband had read the Liberal economists and could not think of paying without due return. Accordingly 'enlightened self‑interest' found a way. An encampment of mill‑hands was settled in the park, and they were put to work walling the grounds and facing the house with great blocks of stone from a neighbouring quarry. At the end of the American war they returned to their mills, and Llanabba House became Llanabba Castle after a great deal of work had been done very cheaply.
Driving up from the station in a little closed taxi, Paul saw little of all this. It was almost dark in the avenue and quite dark inside the house.
'I am Mr Pennyfeather, he said to the butler. 'I have come here as a master.
'Yes, said the butler, 'I know all about you. This way.
They went down a number of passages, unlit and smelling obscurely of all the ghastly smells of school, until they reached a brightly lighted door.