equipped for business rather than for beauty; furniture and garments
were simple in those Salem days. A homely old paper covered the walls, a
brownish old carpet the floor. There was an old rocking-chair, its black
paint much worn and defaced; another chair was drawn up to the table,
which stood to the left of the eastern window; and on the table was a
mahogany desk, concerning which I must enter into some particulars.
It was then, and for years afterwards, an object of my most earnest
scrutiny. Such desks are not made nowadays.

When closed, it was an oblong mahogany box, two feet long by half that
width, and perhaps nine inches high. It had brass corners, and a brass
plate on the top, inscribed with the name, "N. Hawthorne." At one end
was a drawer, with a brass handle playing on a hinge and fitting into
a groove or socket when down; there was a corresponding handle at the
other end, but that was for symmetry only; the one drawer went clear
through the desk. I often mused over the ethics of this deception.

Being opened, the desk presented a sloping surface two feet square,
covered with black velvet, which had been cut here and there and pasted
down again, and was stiffened with many ink-spatterings. This writing
surface consisted of two lids, hinged at their junction in the centre;
lifting them, you discovered two receptacles to hold writing-paper and
other desk furniture. They were of about equal capacity; for although
the upper half of the desk was the more capacious, you must not forget
that two inches of it, at the bottom, was taken up by the long drawer
already mentioned.

But there was, also, a more interesting curtailment of this interior
space. Along the very top of the desk, as it lay open, was a narrow
channel, perhaps a couple of inches wide and deep, divided into three
sections; two square ones, at the opposite ends, held the ink-bottle and
the sand-bottle; the long central one was for quill pens. These, in
the aggregate, appeared to the superficial eye to account for all that
remained of the cubic contents of the structure; but the supreme mystery
and charm of the affair was that they did not!

No; there was an esoteric secret still in reserve; and for years it
remained a secret to me. The bottle-sockets and pen-tray did not reach
down to the level of the long drawer by nearly an inch. Measurement
would prove that; but you would have said that the interval must be
solid wood; for nothing but a smoot