It passed the bounds even of lawful magic.
His palace, his museum! The fruit of a captious hour!
Ah! But he was furious. Like every ageing artist of genuine
accomplishment, he knew--none better--that there is no satisfaction save
the satisfaction of fatigue after honest endeavour. He knew--none
better--that wealth and glory and fine clothes are nought, and that
striving is all. He had never been happier than during the last two
years. Yet the finest souls have their reactions, their rebellions
against wise reason. And Priam's soul was in insurrection then. He
wanted wealth and glory and fine clothes once more. It seemed to him
that he was out of the world and that he must return to it. The covert
insults of Mr. Oxford rankled and stung. And the fat foreman had
mistaken him for a workman cadging for a job.
He walked rapidly to the bridge and took a cab to Conduit Street, where
dwelt a firm of tailors with whose Paris branch he had had dealings in
his dandiacal past.
An odd impulse perhaps, but natural.
A lighted clock-tower--far to his left as the cab rolled across the
bridge--showed that a legislative providence was watching over Israel.
_Alice on the Situation_
"I bet the building alone won't cost less than seventy thousand pounds,"
he said.
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