Publisher's Synopsis
Archibold Masterman, tall, heavily-built, muscular, and on the wrong side of fifty, was universally esteemed an excellent specimen of that dubious product of modern commerce, the self-made man. At twenty he was a day-labourer, at thirty a jobbing builder, at forty a contractor in a large way of business. At that point may be dated the beginning of his social efflorescence. It was then that he began to wear broadcloth on week-days, and insisted on a fresh shirt every other day. Hitherto careless of his appearance, he now took a quiet pride in clothes, and discovered the uses of the manicure. A little later he discovered that a man's position in society is judged by the kind of house he lives in, and that it is social wisdom to pay a high rent for a small house in a discreetly "good" locality, rather than a low rent for a much better house in a deteriorated suburb. That was the year in which he purchased Eagle House, a pompous, old-fashioned residence standing in its own grounds in Highbourne Gardens.
