As she informed him, with an ungrudging particularity, about Putney, and her life at Putney, there gradually arose in his brain a vision of a kind of existence such as he had never encountered.  Putney had clearly the advantages of a residential town in a magnificent situation.  It lay on the slope of a hill whose foot was washed by a glorious stream entitled the Thames, its breast covered with picturesque barges and ornamental rowing boats; an arched bridge spanned this stream, and you went over the bridge in milk-white omnibuses to London.  Putney had a street of handsome shops, a purely business street; no one slept there now because of the noise of motors; at eventide the street glittered in its own splendours.  There were theatre, music-hall, assembly-rooms, concert hall, market, brewery, library, and an afternoon tea shop exactly like Regent Street (not that Mrs. Challice cared for their alleged China tea); also churches and chapels; and Barnes Common if you walked one way, and Wimbledon Common if you walked another.  Mrs. Challice lived in Werter Road, Werter Road starting conveniently at the corner of the High Street where the fish-shop was—­an establishment where authentic sole was always obtainable, though it was advisable not to buy it on Monday mornings, of course.  Putney was a place where you lived unvexed, untroubled.  You had your little house, and your furniture, and your ability to look after yourself at all ends, and your knowledge of the prices of everything, and your deep knowledge of human nature, and your experienced forgivingness towards human frailties.  You did not keep a servant, because servants were so complicated, and because they could do nothing whatever as well as you could do it yourself.  You had a charwoman when you felt idle or when you chose to put the house into the back-yard for an airing.  With the charwoman, a pair of gloves for coarser work, and gas stoves, you ‘made naught’ of domestic labour.  You were never worried by ambitions, or by envy, or by the desire to know precisely what the wealthy did and to do likewise.  You read when you were not more amusingly occupied, preferring illustrated papers and magazines.  You did not traffic with art to any appreciable extent, and you never dreamed of letting it keep you awake at night.  You were rich, for the reason that you spent less than you received.  You never speculated about the ultimate causes of things, or puzzled yourself concerning the possible developments of society in the next hundred years.  When you saw a poor old creature in the street you bought a box of matches off the poor old creature.  The social phenomenon which chiefly roused you to just anger was the spectacle of wealthy people making money and so taking the bread out of the mouths of people who needed It.  The only apparent blots on existence at Putney were the noise and danger of the High Street, the dearth of reliable laundries, the manners of a middle-aged lady engaged at the post office (Mrs. Challice liked the other ladies in the post office), and the absence of a suitable man in the house.