That's his business."
For the rest of the voyage up-channel Mr. M'Leod talked to me of
the assembling, preparation, and sale of the rarer furs; and told
me things about the manufacture of fur-lined coats which quite
shocked me. Somehow or other, when we landed on Wednesday, I
found myself pledged to spend that week-end with him at
Holmescroft.
On Saturday he met me with a well-groomed motor, and ran me out,
in an hour and a half, to an exclusive residential district of
dustless roads and elegantly designed country villas, each
standing in from three to five acres of perfectly appointed land.
He told me land was selling at eight hundred pounds the acre, and
the new golf links, whose Queen Anne pavilion we passed, had cost
nearly twenty-four thousand pounds to create.
Holmescroft was a large, two-storied, low, creeper-covered
residence. A verandah at the south side gave on to a garden and
two tennis courts, separated by a tasteful iron fence from a most
park-like meadow of five or six acres, where two Jersey cows
grazed.
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