man. "Walk in."

We did walk into a large room, with a few chairs and two or three
pictures in it; nothing particular, I can tell you.

"This way," says the man.

We went that way, into a great room, long and wide as a meeting-house,
choke full of long windows, and with three awful large glass balloons,
blazing with lights, a-hanging from the roof.

The carpet was thick and soft as a sandy shore, and had its colors all
trampled in together, as if some one had stamped down the leaves of a
maple camp into the grass as they fell last year.

"The chairs and sofas and looking-glasses were bought when General
Washington was President," says the man.

"Mercy on me! you don't say so," says I. "They look rather skimpy for
these times, don't they?" says I; but then his way of buying things and
spending money was a little skimpy compared to the way Presidents spend
money now; but, of course, we grow more deserving as we grow older.
"Now, those red silk curtains that almost hide the lace ones, did they
belong to Washington?"

"Them? Oh, no; we change them every four years."

"Then they go out with the President," says I.

"We don't think that he will go out yet awhile," says the man, looking a
little wrathy.

"Well, I hope he won't, for great men are scarce in these times," says
I, wanting to mollify him. He said nothing, and I followed him through a
door into a smaller room, so full of green that it seemed like stepping
out of a blazing sun into a fern hollow. The walls were green; the
carpet was green as meadow grass; the sofas and chairs were cushioned
with green satin. The glass balloon seemed to have a sea-green tinge in
it, though it was blazing like a bonfire.

Not a soul was in the room, and we went on to the next which was long,
rounded off at the ends like a lemon, and blue as the sky. Down the tall
windows came curtains of blue silk, sweeping over white lace. The chairs
seemed framed in solid gold; their cushions were blue silk.

"This is the celebrated blue room," says the man.

"I've heard about it," says I.

"And this," says he, "is the red room. The President has given a
dinner-party to General Sickles this evening, and they are now at the
table. Would you like to look in?"

Before I could answer, we were standing in the red room, and looking
through at a table crowded round with gentlemen and ladies, dressed like
queens and princes, some of them looking handsome as angels.

"That is General Sickl