large, low-ceiled room
was filled with furniture of the most fantastic styles;--tables and
chairs with twisted legs and scrolls of tarnished gilt; a
solid-looking, elaborately carved _chiffonier_, exhibiting Adam and
Eve in airy dishabille, sowing the seeds of mischief for an unborn
world; a long mirror in broad gilt frame of the most deliciously
quaint rococo, calling up the images of slim, long-waisted ladies and
powdered gentlemen with wristbands of ancient lace, silk stockings,
and gorgeous coats, _a la_ Louis XV. The very air seemed to be filled
with the vague musty odor of by-gone times, and the impression grew
upon me that I had unawares stepped into a lumber-room, where the
eighteenth century was stowed away for safe-keeping.

"You see I have a weakness for old furniture," explained my host,
while his rigid features labored for an instant to adjust themselves
into something resembling a smile. I imagined I could hear them
creaking faintly in the effort like tissue-paper when crumpled by an
unwary hand. I almost regretted my rudeness in having subjected him to
the effort. I noticed that he spoke with a slow, laborious
enunciation, as if he were fashioning the words carefully in his mouth
before making up his mind to emit them. His thin, flexible lips seemed
admirably adapted for this purpose.

"It is the only luxury I allow myself," he continued, seeing that I
was yet ill at ease. "My assortment, as you will observe, is as yet a
very miscellaneous one, and I do not know that I ever shall be able to
complete it."

"You are a fortunate man," remarked I, "who can afford to indulge such
expensive tastes."

"Expensive," he repeated musingly, as if that idea had never until
then occurred to him. "You are quite mistaken. Expensive, as I
understand the term, is not that which has a high intrinsic worth, but
that which can only be procured at a price considerably above its real
value. In this sense, a hobby is not an expensive thing. It is, as I
regard it, one of the safest investments life has to offer. An
unambitious man like myself, without a hobby, would necessarily be
either an idler or a knave. And I am neither the one nor the other.
The truth is, my life was very poorly furnished at the start, and I
have been laboring ever since to supply the deficiency. I am one of
those crude colorless, superfluous products which Nature throws off
with listless ease in her leisure moments when her thoughts are
wandering an