The bright August sun certainly made the dining-room paper look dingy.
It was a plain, self-coloured paper, but we were rather attached to it,
and didn't like the idea of a change.
But there seemed no help for it, so I arranged to leave my office early
on Friday afternoon, meet Alison at the Marble Arch tube station and go
with her to choose a new paper.
When we reached the wall-paperer's lair we were ushered by an immaculate
personage into a room that looked more like the dining-room of a private
house than a part of business premises.
"Perhaps," I said, in an awed whisper, "you don't care to have anything
to do with such trifling things as--er--wall-paper?"
"Indeed we do," said the nobleman. "Most important things, wall-papers.
Where did you want it for?"
"For a room in my house, of course," I said. "Not for the garden."
"Oh, not for the garden. And what sort of house is yours?" he asked.
"A very nice house," I said.
"I meant what was the style of the house--Jacobean, Georgian?"
"Brixtonian rococo outwardly," I said, "as far as I can judge; but very
snug inside. No doubt you could show us something we should like which
would also satisfy your sense of propriety."
"I think it might be managed," he said, waving his hand towards two or
three giant books of patterns.
"What we want," I said, "is something meaty."
"Ah, for the dining-room," he said.
"Well, it's a courtesy title," I said, "but really in these hard times
we have reduced economy to such a fine art that I thought a wall-paper
with body in it might help matters."
"I think I catch the idea," said the marquis. "Something that would make
you feel more satisfied after dinner than you otherwise would feel, as
it were."
"My dear Sir," I said, "you have hit it exactly. Yours is a sympathetic
nature. How readily you have divined my thoughts! No doubt you too are
suffering."
He sighed almost audibly. "How is the room furnished?" he said.
"Leading features," I said, "a Welsh dresser, rush-bottomed chairs,
gate-legged table, bookcases--"
"Saxe-blue carpet," said Alison.
"A most important detail," Lord Bayswater said. "Don't you think
something of a chintzy nature would ... etc."
Both Alison and I agreed that a prescription of that kind might possibly
... etc.
I don't know what is comprised under the term chintzy, but it appeared
to be a comprehensive one, for the nobleman descanted on the merits of
the following patterns among others:--
(1) Cockatoos on trees, cockatooing.
(2) Pheasants on trees, eating blackberries.
(3) Other birds on trees, doing nothing in particular.
(4) Roses, in full bloom, half bloom, fading, falling.
(5) Forget-me-nots in bunches, ready for sale.
(6) Grapes doing whatever it is that grapes do.
(7) Other flowers and fruits, also acting after the manner of their
kind.
Many other patterns were shown us and we spent an hour or two looking at
them. Our host tried hard to push the cockatoos on to us. His idea was
that the pattern would act as wallpaper and pictures combined. Alison's
idea was that there would be too many portraits of cockatoos round the
room, and I maintained that the wretched birds looked so realistic that
I should certainly feel I ought to be giving them some food, and this
would of course hardly assist my idea. The noes had it.
In the end we came away with four patterns (fruits and flowers) and a
promise to let Lord Bayswater know which one we preferred. One of them I
chose really to show my tailor, as it was a top-hole scheme for a winter
waistcoat.
Alison and I spent the evening hanging the patterns up one after the
other on one wall of the dining-room, and tried to paper the rest of the
walls in the mind's eye, but at eleven o'clock we knocked off for the
night and went to bed with headaches.
I fancy Alison must have had a disturbed night. As I was leaving the
house after breakfast she said, "Have you made up your mind about those
patterns?"
"No, I haven't," I said. "I'm going to leave it to you. Choose which you
like."
"I've chosen," she said with an air of finality.
"Well," said Alison, when I reached home that evening, "it's up."
"Up?" I said. "The new paper, already?"
"Come and see," Alison said.
"By Jove, how well it looks!" I said. "You've chosen well. There's
something familiar about it, though it looks almost new."
"Yes," said Alison, "Ellen and I cleaned it all over with bread-crumbs."
"Poor Lord Bayswater," I said. "But you've done the right thing.
Wall-paper as usual during the War."
* * * * *
[Illustration: "NAH, ALL THEM AS IS WILLIN' TO COME ALONG O' ME, PLEASE
SIGNIFY THE SAME IN THE USUAL MANNER. CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: _First dangerous Mule (to second ditto)._ "DON'T YOU GO
NEAR HER, MATE--SHE'LL KICK YER."]
* * * * *
"The annual agricultural returns show that the increased area in
England and Wales of corn and potatoes for the present harvest
amount to no less than 347,0000 acres. This result exceeds all
expectations."
_Bradford Daily Argus_.
We can well believe it.
* * * * *