In a short time now we shall have to return this flat to its proper
tenants and arrive at some assessment of the damage done to their
effects. With regard to the other rooms, even the room which Richard
and Priscilla condescend to use as a nursery, I shall accept the
owners' estimate cheerfully enough, I think; but the case of the
drawing-room furniture is different. About the nursery I have
only heard vague rumours, but in the drawing-room I have been an
eye-witness of the facts.
The proper tenant is a bachelor who lived here with his sister; he
will scarcely realise, therefore, what happens at 5 P.M. every day,
when there comes, as the satiric poet, LONGFELLOW, has so finely
sung--
"A pause in the day's occupations,
Which is known as the children's hour."
Drawing-room furniture indeed! When one considers the buildings and
munition dumps, the live and rolling stock, the jungles and forests
in that half-charted territory; when one considers that even the
mere wastepaper basket by the writing-desk (and it _does_ look a bit
battered, that wastepaper basket) is sometimes the tin helmet under
which Richard defies the frightfulness of LARS PORSENA, and sometimes
a necessary stage property for Priscilla's two favourite dramatic
recitations
"He plunged with a delighted _scweam_
Into a bowl of clotted cweam,"
and
"This is Mr. Piggy Wee,
With tail so pink and curly,
And when I say, 'Good mornin', pig,'
He answers _vewwy_ surly,
Oomph! Oomph!'"
and sometimes the hutch that harbours a cotton-wool creation supposed
to be a white rabbit, and stated by the owner to be "munsin' and
munsin' and munsin' a carrot"--when, I say, I consider all these
things I anticipate that the proceedings of the Reparation Commission
will be something like this:--
_He (looking a little ruefully at the round music-stool)_. I suppose
your wife plays the piano a good deal?
_I (brightly)_. If you mean the detachable steering-wheel, it is only
fair to remember that a part interchangeable between the motor-omnibus
and the steam-roller--
_He_. I don't understand.
_I_. Permit me to reassemble the mechanism.
_He_. You mean that when you put that armchair at the end of the sofa
and the music-stool in front of it--
_I_. I mean that the motor-omnibus driver, sitting as he does in front
of his vehicle and manipulating his steering-wheel like this, can
do little or no harm to the apparatus. On the other hand, the
steam-roller mechanic, standing _inside_ the body of the vehicle, and
having the steering-wheel in _this_ position--
_He_. On the sofa?
_I_. Naturally. Well, supposing he happens to have a slight difference
of opinion with his mate as to which of them ought to do the driving,
the wheel is quite likely to be pushed off on to the macadam, where it
gets a trifle frayed round the edges.
_He_. I see. How awfully stupid of me! And this pouffe, or whatever
they call it?
_I_. Week in and week out, boy and girl, I have seen that dromedary
ridden over more miles of desert than I can tell you, and never once
have I known it under-fed or under-watered, or struck with anything
harder than the human fist. Of course the hump does get a little
floppy with frequent use, but considering how barren your Sahara--
_He_. Quite, quite. I was just looking at that armchair. Aren't there
a lot of scratches on the legs?
_I_. Have you ever _kept_ panthers? Do you realise how impatiently
they chafe at times against the bars of their cage? Of course, if you
haven't....
Finally, I imagine he will see how reasonable my attitude is and how
little he has to complain of. He will recognise that one cannot deal
with complicated properties of this sort without a certain amount of
inevitable dilapidation and loss.
As a matter of fact I have an even stronger line of argument if I
choose to take it. I can put in a counter-claim. One of the principal
attractions of old furniture, after all, is historic association.
There is the armchair, you know, that Dr. JOHNSON sat in, and the
inkpot, or whatever it was, that MARY, Queen of Scots, threw at JOHN
BUNYAN or somebody, and I have also seen garden-seats carved out of
famous battleships. And then again, if you go to Euston, or it may be
Darlington, you will find on the platform the original tea-kettle out
of which GEORGE WASHINGTON constructed the first steam-engine. The
drawing-room furniture that we are relinquishing combines the interest
of all these things. If I like I can put a placard on the sofa, before
I take its owner to see it, worded something like this:--
"Puffing Billy, the original steam-roller out of which this elegant
piece was carved, held the 1920 record for fourteen trips to Brighton
and back within half-an-hour." And after he has seen that I can lead
him gently on to Roaring Rupert, the arm-chair. Really, therefore,
when one comes to consider it, the man owes me a considerable sum of
money for the enhanced sentimental value that has been given to his
commonplace property.
Mind you, I have no wish to be too hard on him. I shall be content
with a quite moderate claim, or even with no claim at all. Possibly,
now I come to think of it; I shall simply say,
"You know what it is to have a couple of bally kids about the place.
What shall I give you to call it square?"
And he will name a sum and offer me a cigarette, and we shall talk a
little about putting or politics.
But it doesn't much matter. Whatever he asks he can only put it down
in the receipts' column of his account-book under the heading of
"Depreciation of Furniture," whereas in my expenses it will stand as
"Richard and Priscilla: for Adventures, Travel and Romance."