Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/190

 "One moment, Lord Stranleigh. Before going further, allow me to become accustomed to the amateurish idiocy of your proposal."

"Which part of it? The coastguard station, or the furnishing thereof?"

"The furniture proposition. Of course, the buying of the coastguard station merely means that you will spend good money to acquire property that you can't give away. The English may be mostly fools, as you remarked this morning, but they are not so imbecile as to buy several suburban villas on an inaccessible rock."

"I don't intend to sell again," said Stranleigh, with great good nature, "but I am evolving a plan to dispose of this desirable marine property to the Government that now heedlessly parts with it. Your main objection I take to be the acquiring of furniture, yet much as I love the simple life, I can't reside in empty houses."

"Certainly not; but you purpose making a freighter of your beautiful yacht, and will knock more paint and varnish off the craft and break more of her fittings, than the whole thing is worth. Even imagine that done, there may not be another day this year when you can land the stuff at Lannacombe Cove."