"

After our meal we made a tour of inspection. The flat, which included
the whole floor, contained nine or ten rooms, of all shapes and sizes.
The corners in some of the rooms were cut off and shaped up into closets
and recesses, so that Euphemia said the corners of every room were in
some other room.

Near the back of the flat was a dumb-waiter, with bells and
speaking-tubes. When the butcher, the baker, or the kerosene-lamp maker,
came each morning, he rang the bell, and called up the tube to know what
was wanted. The order was called down, and he brought the things in the
afternoon.

All this greatly charmed Euphemia. It was so cute, so complete. There
were no interviews with disagreeable trades-people, none of the ordinary
annoyances of housekeeping. Everything seemed to be done with a bell, a
speaking-tube or a crank.

"Indeed," said the ex-boarder, "if it were not for people tripping
over the wires, I could rig up attachments by which I could sit in the
parlor, and by using pedals and a key-board, I could do all the work of
this house without getting out of my easy-chair."

One of the most peculiar features of the establishment was the servant's
room. This was at the rear end of the floor, and as there was not much
space left after the other rooms had been made, it was very small; so
small, indeed, that it would accommodate only a very short bedstead.
This made it necessary for our friends to consider the size of the
servant when they engaged her.

"There were several excellent girls at the intelligence office where I
called," said the ex-boarder, "but I measured them, and they were all
too tall. So we had to take a short one, who is only so so. There was
one big Scotch girl who was the very person for us, and I would have
taken her if my wife had not objected to my plan for her accommodation.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Well," said he, "I first thought of cutting a hole in the partition
wall at the foot of the bed, for her to put her feet through."

"Never!" said his wife, emphatically. "I would never have allowed that."

"And then," continued he, "I thought of turning the bed around, and
cutting a larger hole, through which she might have put her head into
the little room on this side. A low table could have stood under the
hole, and her head might have rested on a cushion on the table very
comfortably."

"My dear," said his wife, "it would have frightened me to death to go
into that room and see