dictionary at home; but I'm afraid I've forgotten it. Let me see;
it's twenty-one pounds to the guinea, isn't it? Then I'm to pay
about sixty-three pounds a week for my lodgings."

This was the right spirit. He said it so simply, so seriously, so
innocently, that Philip was quite sure he really meant it. He was
prepared, if necessary, to pay sixty odd pounds a week in rent.
Now, a man like that is the proper kind of man for a respectable
neighbourhood. He'll keep a good saddle-horse, join the club, and
play billiards freely. Philip briefly explained to him the nature
of his mistake, pointing out to him that a guinea was an imaginary
coin, unrepresented in metal, but reckoned by prescription at
twenty-one shillings. The stranger received the slight correction
with such perfect nonchalance, that Philip at once conceived a
high opinion of his wealth and solvency, and therefore of his
respectability and moral character. It was clear that pounds and
shillings were all one to him. Philip had been right, no doubt,
in his first diagnosis of his queer acquaintance as a man of
distinction. For wealth and distinction are practically synonyms
in England for one and the same quality, possession of the
wherewithal.

As they parted, the stranger spoke again, still more at sea. "And
are there any special ceremonies to be gone through on taking up
lodgings?" he asked quite gravely. "Any religious rites, I mean to
say? Any poojah or so forth? That is," he went on, as Philip's
smile broadened, "is there any taboo to be removed or appeased
before I can take up my residence in the apartments?"

By this time Philip was really convinced he had to do with a