"My dear, if we were rich we would build."
"We would," I said, and, with a cunning of which I felt secretly proud, I encouraged her to describe the house she would like to possess. I am a bit of a draughtsman, and from the descriptions she gave me of the house that would complete her happiness I drew out the plans of an Ideal Residence which I was convinced could not be found anywhere on the face of the earth. This, however, was not my wife's opinion.
"It is the exact thing, Edward," she said, and she took my plans to the agents, who said they were very nice, and that they had on their books just the place she was looking for--with one trifling exception scarcely worth mentioning. But this trifling exception proved ever to be of alarming proportions, was often hydra-headed, and was always insurmountable. Then would she glow with indignation at the duplicity of the agents, and would call them names which, had they been publicly uttered, would have laid us open to a great number of actions for libel and slander. Thus a month passed by, and, except for prostration of spirits, we were precisely where we had been when we commenced. The Ideal Residence was still a castle in Spain.
One evening, when we were so tired out that we could hardly crawl along, my indomitable wife, after slamming the last street door behind her, informed me that she intended to call upon another house agent whom she had not yet patronized.
"That will be the ninth, I think," I said, in a mild tone.
"Yes, the ninth," she said. "They are a dreadful lot. You can't place the slightest dependence upon them."
Gascoigne was the name of the agent we now visited, and he entertained us in the old familiar way. As a matter of course, he had the very house to suit us; in fact, he had a dozen, and he went through them _seriatim_. But my wife, who during the past month had learned something, managed, by dint of skillful questioning, to lay her hand on the one weak spot which presented itself in all.
"I am afraid they will not do," she said, "but we will look at them all the same."
I sighed; I was in for it once more. A dozen fresh keys, a dozen fresh orders to view--in a word, a wasted, weary week. Mr. Gascoigne drummed with his fingers on his office table, and, after a pause, said: