E. Phillips Oppenheim

“ One must pay for one's luxuries, you know. Don't you agree with me, Hambledon?"
"One has always to pay, of course," Hambledon muttered, "but it was a great price. They say that he is blind for life, and that he has sworn never to be seen upon the streets."
"The streets will be the purer then," Mannister answered calmly. "I am afraid that I am not a sentimentalist. I have yet to find the man or the woman who knew Colin Stevens and was not the worse for it."
Sophy de la Mere patted her dog's head for a moment, and looked absently up the room to where her two admirers were sitting. ”

“ Jacobs answered. "What satisfies some men would not satisfy me. To get on quickly, one must save money every week, every month."
"Naturally," Mannister assented, "yet think how much better your position is than say a clerk in a warehouse or drapery establishment. They have neither the chance to save money nor to make it. You, on the other hand, have both, and if you chance to lose it, it is other people's money and not your own." ”

“ As for my share of your beastly trust money, I lost it long ago. The whole thing did me no good."
"The money," Mannister declared, having composed the menu to his liking, and scribbling it out with a heavy gold pencil, "is after all of no great account; but there were the other things, you see, my friends, there were the other things to be taken into account. By-the-bye, this is excellent caviare. Did you try it, you fellows?"
"No!" Hambledon answered, gruffly. "We're not taking caviare at five shillings a time, Ernest and I. Things are none too good in the city." ”