re still ruinously expensive. I told him we wanted an
idyll--love in a cottage, and all that kind of thing. He brushed that on
one side, said idols were upstairs in the Japanese Department, and that
perhaps we might _do_ with a servant's set of bedroom furniture. Do with
a set! He was a gloomy man with (I should judge) some internal pain. I
tried to tell him that there was quite a lot of middle-class people like
myself in the country, people of limited or precarious means, whose
existence he seemed to ignore; assured him some of them led quite
beautiful lives. But he had no ideas beyond wardrobes. I quite forgot
the business of shopping in an attempt to kindle a little human
enthusiasm in his heart. We were in a great vast place full of
wardrobes, with a remote glittering vista of brass bedsteads--skeleton
beds, you know--and I tried to inspire him with some of the poetry of
his emporium; tried to make him imagine these beds and things going east
and west, north and south, to take sorrow, servitude, joy, worry,
failing strength, restless ambition in their impartial embraces. He only
turned round to Annie, and asked her if she thought she could _do_ with
'enamelled.' But I was quite taken with my idea----Where is it? I left
Annie to settle with this misanthrope, amidst his raw frameworks of the
Homes of the Future."

He fumbled with his tablets. "Mats for hall--not to exceed 3s. 9d....
Kerbs ... inquire tiled hearth ... Ah! Here we are: 'Ballade of the
Bedroom Suite':--

"'Noble the oak you are now displaying,
Subtly the hazel's grainings go,
Walnut's charm there is no gainsaying,
Red as red wine is your rosewood's glow;
Brave and brilliant the ash you show,
Rich your mahogany's hepatite shine,
Cool and sweet your enamel: But oh!
_Where are the wardrobes of Painted Pine?_'

"They have 'em in the catalogue at five guineas, with a picture--quite
as good they are as the more expensive ones. To judge by the picture."

"But that's scarcely the idea you started with," I began.

"Not; it went wrong--ballades often do. The preoccupation of the
'Painted Pine' was too much for me. What's this? 'N.B.--Sludge sells
music stools at--' No. Here we are (first half unwritten):--

"'White enamelled, like driven snow,
Picked with just one delicate line.
Price you were saying is? Fourteen!--No!
_Where are the wardrobes of Pa