单选题 Read the following passage and choose the correct answer from A, B, C or D. Chris Baildon, tall and lean, was in his early thirties, and the end product of an old decayed island family. Chris shared the too large house with his father, an arthritic and difficult man, and a wasp-tongued aunt, whose complaints ended when she slept. The father and his sister, Chris's Aunt Agatha, engaged in shrill-voiced argument over nothing. The continuous exchange further confused their foolish wits, and yet held off an endurable loneliness. They held a common grievance against Chris, openly holding him to blame for their miserable existence. He should long ago lift them from poverty, for had they not sacrificed everything to send him to England and Oxford University. Driven by creditors or pressing desires, earlier Baildons had long ago cheaply disposed of valuable properties. Brother and sister never ceased to remind each other of the depressing fact that their ancestors had wasted their inheritance. This, in fact, was their only other point of agreement. A few years earlier Agatha had announced that she intended doing something about repairing the family fortunes. The many empty rooms could be rented to selected guests. She would establish, not a boarding house, but home for ladies and gentlemen, and make a tidy profit. With this ambition in mind, she throws herself into a venture with noisy fury. Old furniture was polished; rugs and carpets were beaten, floors painted, long stored mattress, pillows and bed linen aired in the sun. The huge ketch was attacked. Agatha, with a fine air of defiance, took a copy of modest advertisement to the press. Two guests were lured by the promise of beautiful gourmet meals, home atmosphere in a historic mansion, and the company of we-brought-up ladies and gentlemen. The two, one a bank-clerk and the other a maiden employed in the bookshop, arrived simultaneously, whereupon Agatha condescended to show their rooms, and promptly forgot about them. There was no hot water. Dinner time found Baildon and Agatha sharing half cold chicken and a few boiled potatoes in the dining room's gloomy vastness. When the guests came timidly to inquire about the dining hours, and to point out that there were no sheets on the beds, no water in the pitchers and no towels in their racks, Agatha reminded them that the Baildon were not inn keepers, and they treated them to an account of the family's past glories.