And he gazed at the broad river and its hanging gardens, and dreamed; and was wakened by the roar of an electric train shooting across the stream on a red causeway a few yards below him.

And, miles off, he could descry the twin towers of the Crystal Palace, more marvellous than mosques! "Astounding!" he murmured joyously.

He had not a care in the world; and Putney was all that Alice had painted it.

In due time, when bells had pealed to right and to left of him, he went home to her.
_Collapse of the Putney System_ Now, just at the end of lunch, over the last stage of which they usually sat a long time, Alice got up quickly, in the midst of her Stilton, and, going to the mantelpiece, took a letter therefrom.
"I wish you'd look at that, Henry," she said, handing him the letter.
"It came this morning, but of course I can't be bothered with that sort of thing in the morning.

So I put it aside." He accepted the letter, and unfolded it with the professional all-knowing air which even the biggest male fool will quite successfully put on in the presence of a woman if consulted about business.