"Yes," rejoined Derrick, with a laugh. "And it's the most important one
in the language nowadays. Comfort is the one thing everybody goes for;
we've made it our tin god, and we worship it all the time; it's because
money means comfort that we're all out for it."
"And yet you are poor," said her Excellency, musingly. "And you are
happy?"
There was a note of interrogation in her voice, and Derrick checked a
sigh as he shrugged his shoulders, a trick which everybody about the
place possessed, and he was acquiring unconsciously; he was dreading
that, in time, he should come to spread out his hands and gesticulate
like the rest of them.
"Count no man happy till he's dead," he said, a trifle wistfully; and,
at that moment, the scene before him, fair as it was, assumed a dreary
aspect, and he longed for the grimy London streets, the hustle of the
crowd, the smell of the asphalt; and, above all, the stone staircase and
the gaol-like corridors of Brown's Buildings. "At any rate, if I'm not
happy, it is not your fault, Donna Elvira. Owing to your kindness, I
have fallen on clover--pardon! I mean that I've got an excellent
situation. And, speaking of that, I'm very glad to see you. I'm afraid
you'll think I'm a nuisance, and that, like a new broom, I want to sweep
everything clean; but I'm obliged to tell you that the machinery you've
got out there is played out, and that it is absolutely necessary to have
a new plant. It will cost you a great deal of money, and I don't know
where it is to come from--straight from England, I suppose."
She made a movement of her hand, indicating what seemed to Derrick
sublime indifference.
"It shall be as you say," she said. "You have been working very hard, is
it not? Oh, I have seen you coming from the shed; you looked tired and
so----Is it necessary, señor, to get so dirty?"
"'Fraid it is," said Derrick, with a laugh; "the worst of it is, the
machinery is even dirtier than I am. 'Pon my word, I don't believe it's
had a good over-haul for years."
"Possibly," said Donna Elvira, absently. "The last man who had charge of
it was too fond of the wine."
"I can believe it," said Derrick; "anyway, he kept his machinery thirsty
enough. What shall I do about it?"
She pondered for a moment or two; then, with a sudden raising of her sad
eyes, she said, slowly, "It must come from England, you said. It is possible to order it from
thence?"