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 architect is the number of houses upon which he is engaged. I had always looked upon houses as something which one would be apt to build one at a time, like a cup challenger or a soldier’s monument, and, in consequence of this impression, I was prepared to find the architect in question highly gratified at the receipt of my order. It certainly never occurred to me, considering the number of architects, that there were enough houses to go round; but I found him already committed to no less than nine, of which an amazing number of young men in shirt-sleeves were drawing the details in white ink on sheets of blue paper.

Arbuthnot — such was his name — was inclined to be sniffy, as he looked over my plan. It was extraordinary, after all my thought, what a lot of things I had done wrong, I only remember one, at the moment, but that was serious. There was no visible means of getting into the kitchen from the exterior of the house, so that, as Arbuthnot slightingly remarked,