He now set to work in earnest, as we can prove beyond a doubt if we look at his ledgers. Let us glance at an inventory of what he bought at this time, with the expenses totted up in the margin—but these we omit.
- “To fifty pairs of Spanish blankets, ditto curtains of crimson and white taffeta; the valence to them of white satin embroidered with crimson and white silk. …”
- “To seventy yellow satin chairs and sixty stools, suitable with their buckram covers to them all. …”
- “To sixty-seven walnut-tree tables. …”
- “To seventeen dozen boxes containing each dozen five dozen of Venice glasses. …”
- “To one hundred and two mats, each thirty yards long. …”
- “To ninety-seven cushions of crimson damask laid with silver parchment lace and footstools of cloth of tissue and chairs suitable. …”
- “To fifty branches for a dozen lights apiece. …”
Already—it is an effect lists have upon us—we are beginning to yawn. But if we stop, it is only that the catalogue is tedious, not that it is finished. There are ninety-nine pages more of it and the total sum disbursed ran into many thousands—that is to say millions of our money. And if his day was spent like this, Lord Orlando might be found reckoning out what it would cost to level a million molehills, if the men were paid tenpence an hour; and, again, how many hundredweights of nails at five pence-halfpenny a gill were needed to repair the fence round the park, which was fifteen miles in circumference. And so on and so on.