For his own part he thought no great harm of the roistering, gaming, and gallantries of the Court dandies.

He knew that the times were very good for him.

Fine ladies were for ever sending for him to alter some house or some room.

Gay young husbands, or those who thought of becoming husbands, were seldom content nowadays without pulling their house about their ears, and rebuilding it after some new-fangled fashion copied from France.

Or if the structure were let alone, the plenishings must be totally changed; and Master Charles Mason, albeit a builder by trade, and going generally amongst his acquaintances and friends by the name of Master Builder, had of late years taken to a number of kindred avocations in the matter of house plenishings, and so forth.