“Why, by the week, of course,” Philip answered, suppressing a broad smile of absolute surprise at the man’s childish ignorance.

“And how much shall I have to pay?” the Alien went on quietly.  “Have you any fixed rule about it?”

“Of course not,” Philip answered, unable any longer to restrain his amusement (everything in England was “of course” to Philip).  “You pay according to the sort of accommodation you require, the number of your rooms, and the nature of the neighbourhood.”

“I see,” the Alien replied, imperturbably polite, in spite of Philip’s condescending manner.  “And what do I pay per room in this latitude and longitude?”

For twenty seconds, Philip half suspected his new acquaintance of a desire to chaff him:  but as at the same time the Alien drew from his pocket a sort of combined compass and chronometer which he gravely consulted for his geographical bearings, Philip came to the conclusion he must be either a seafaring man or an escaped lunatic.  So he answered him to the point.  “I should think,” he said quietly, “as Miss Blake’s are extremely respectable lodgings, in a first-rate quarter, and with a splendid view, you’ll probably have to pay somewhere about three guineas.”

“Three what?” the stranger interposed, with an inquiring glance at the little heap of coins he still held before him.

Philip misinterpreted his glance.  “Perhaps that’s too much for you,” he suggested, looking severe; for if people cannot afford to pay for decent rooms, they have no right to invade an aristocratic suburb, and bespeak the attention of its regular residents.

“Oh, that’s not it,” the Alien put in, reading his tone aright.  “The money doesn’t matter to me.  As long as I can get a tidy room, with sun and air, I don’t mind what I pay.  It’s the guinea I can’t quite remember about for the moment.  I looked it up, I know, in a dictionary at home; but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.  Let me see; it’s twenty-one pounds to the guinea, isn’t it?  Then I’m to pay about sixty-three pounds a week for my lodgings.”

This was the right spirit.  He said it so simply, so seriously, so innocently, that Philip was quite sure he really meant it.  He was prepared, if necessary, to pay sixty odd pounds a week in rent.  Now, a man like that is the proper kind of man for a respectable neighbourhood.  He’ll keep a good saddle-horse, join the club, and play billiards freely.  Philip briefly explained to him the nature of his mistake, pointing out to him that a guinea was an imaginary coin, unrepresented in metal, but reckoned by prescription at twenty-one shillings.  The stranger received the slight correction with such perfect nonchalance, that Philip at once conceived a high opinion of his wealth and solvency, and therefore of his respectability and moral character.  It was clear that pounds and shillings were all one to him.  Philip had been right, no doubt, in his first diagnosis of his queer acquaintance as a man of distinction.  For wealth and distinction are practically synonyms in England for one and the same quality, possession of the wherewithal.