FAIR WEAR AND TEAR.
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."
Evoe.
The Idyllist of Downing Street (with four-leaved shamrock). "SHE LOVES ME! SHE—BUT PERHAPS I'D BETTER NOT GO ANY FURTHER."
Visitor. "And how is your newly-married daughter?"
Mrs. Brown. "Oh, she's nicely thank you. She finds her husband a bit dull; but as I tells her, the good 'uns are dull."