I am telling you these facts as concisely as I told them to the agent.  He took them down one by one and said, “Yes.”  Having no interest in anything but the truth, I was as plain with him as I could be.

“Yes,” he said, “no gas anywhere but in garden-room.”

“Yes, small paddock, about two acres, to the south.”

“Yes, one mile from nearest town.”

I was charmed with his easy receptivity and went away content.

A few days later I received the description of the house which the agent had prepared for his clients.  Being still interested in nothing but the truth I was electrified.

“This very desirable residence,” it began.  No great harm in that.

“In heart of most beautiful county in England,” it continued.  Nothing very serious to quarrel with there; tastes must always differ; but it puts the place in a new light.

“Surrounded by pleasure-grounds.”  Here I was pulled up very short.  My little lawn with its evergreens, my desolate cabbage-stalks, my tiny paddock—­these to be so dignified!  And where do the agents get their phrases?  Is there a Thesaurus of the trade, profession, calling, industry or mystery?  “Garden” is a good enough word for any man who lives in his house and is satisfied, but a man who wants a house can be lured to look at it only if it has pleasure-grounds:  is that the position?  Does an agent in his own home refer to the garden in that way?  If his wife is named Maud does he sing, “Come into the pleasure-grounds”?

“Surrounded,” too.  I was so careful to say that the paddock and so forth were on one side and the road on the other.

I read on:  “Situated in the old-world village of Blank.”  And I had been scrupulous in stating that we were a mile distant—­situated in point of fact in a real village of our own, with church, post-office, ancient landau and all the usual appurtenances.  And “old world”!  What is “old world”?  There must be some deadly fascination in the epithet, for no agent can refrain from using it; but what does it mean?  Do American agents use it?  It could have had no attraction for COLUMBUS.  Such however is the failure of our modernity that it is supposed to be irresistible to-day.  And “village!” The indignation of Blank on finding itself called an “old world village” will be something fierce.

None the less, although I was amused and a little irritated, I must confess to the dawnings of dubiety as to the perfect wisdom of leaving such a little paradise.  If it had all this allurement was I being sensible to let others have it, and at a time when houses are so scarce and everything is so costly?  Had I not perhaps been wrong in my estimate?  Was not the sanguine agent the true judge?

I read on and realised that he was not.  “One mile from Blank station.”  Such a statement is one not of critical appraisement but of fact or falsity.  The accent in which he had said, “Yes, two and a-half miles from the station,” was distinct in my ear.