V. Vivian, M.D. by the paint upon his window, dwelt in the Dabney House;
Mr. Heth--pronounced _Heath_ if you value his wife's good opinion--dwelt
in the House of his cognomen. Between the two lay a scant mile of city
streets. But then this happened to be the particular mile which
traversed, while of course it could not span, the Great Gulf fixed.
In one sense (though the wrong one) the Dabney House was the more
impressive of the pair of domiciles: for it was seven stories tall and
had two hundred rooms; while the House of Heth was only four stories and
basement, and had but fourteen rooms, counting in the trunk-room. But
physical size is size only: whereby hang few tales. Over and in the Heth
House there prevailed the most charming air of ease with dignity, of
taste plus means, that you could well imagine: while the circumambient
atmosphere of the Dabney House, not to put too fine a point on it, was
the abomination of desolation, or that abomination's little brother.
Before the one stretched a brilliant street where imposing residences
crowded each other just as close as they could crowd, and still be
imposing, and residences. Behind the other stretched the likeliest the
city could show in the way of slums, and, farther back, just over the
brow of the sinister Hill, something less cheering than honest slums.
One glittered upon the future; the other decayed into the past. And it
would cost you--to clinch the comparison with the true and only--two
thousand dollars a year, say, to secure Mr. Heth's house, negotiating
with his executor at that; while in the great pile of the eponymous
Dabney, you could have all of three rooms and (portable) bath for twelve
dollars a month, though strictly cash in advance....
Cartographers, with their miserable mathematics, called this a statute
mile, which, as we say, a brisk man can walk in the smoking of a
cigarette. But the authors of the Blue Book, grave fellows who have
better struck the scales from their eyes, would have computed you this
distance at _N_, which is infinity: and so closed up the book. For what
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