As "Dammit 'All" came into view, Bill Hollis found an almost morbid fascination in gazing at its turrets and the tower so regally crowning them. It was the house of his father-in-law, Mr. Josiah Munt. Sixteen years ago, in that very month of July, an ambitious young man had married his master's eldest daughter. Melia Munt had espoused Bill Hollis in direct defiance of her father's wishes and had lived long enough already to rue the day. Josiah, at that time, was not the great man he had since become, but he was a hard, unbending parent; and he gave Melia to understand clearly that if she married Hollis he would never speak to her again. Melia chose to defy him, as he always thought out of sheer perversity, and her implacable father had been careful to keep his word to the letter. Not again did he mention her name; not again did her old home receive her.
In those sixteen years Josiah Munt had gone up in the world, and if William Hollis could not be said to have come down in it, he had certainly made very little headway. At the time of his marriage he was the chief barman at "the Duke of Wellington," an extremely thriving public house, at the corner of Waterloo Square in the populous southeastern part of the city. He was now a small greengrocer in Love Lane, within a stone's throw of the famous licensed house of his father-in-law, and he was continually haunted by the problem of how much longer he would be able to carry on his business. On the other hand, his old master had prospered so much that he had recently built for himself a fine house on The Rise.
Mr. Josiah Munt was still the owner of the Duke of Wellington. Over the top of its swing doors his name appeared below the spirited effigy of the Iron Duke as "licensed to sell wines, spirits, beer and tobacco," but years ago he had ceased to reside there with his family. As far as possible he liked to disassociate himself from it in the public mind, but he was too shrewd a man to part with the goose that laid the golden eggs; besides, in his heart, there was a tender spot for the old house which had been the foundation of his fortunes. His womenfolk might despise it; in some ways he had outgrown it himself; but he knew better than to crab his luck by parting with an extremely valuable property which at the present time was not appreciated at its true worth by the surveyor of rates and taxes.