“That would be an extreme measure indeed,” said Pierce. “Take my advice, Guy; let it continue increasing in luxuriance until the winter and then sell it when the hay is getting scarce.”
“Welcome to The Gables!” cried Guy hospitably as the party passed through the porch into the hall. “Welcome all! I hope this may be the first of many pleasant visits to my humble home.”
“How nicely said,” cried Lady Severn. “I am sure that we all share your kind hopes, Mr. Overton.”
The hall was a spacious apartment with a transparent dome roof and mullioned windows. Here and there on the walls hung trophies of the chase, done in plaster of Paris, beautifully tinted (an idea due to the house agent) and some excellent specimens of drapers’ Japanese. The floor was beautifully inlaid as one could see where the borders remained free from the earthy layer that had been transferred from the garden by the boots of (it seemed) half a century.
Cobwebs hung from the beams of the roof like the tattered regimental colours in a church, and here and there a piece of plaster had disappeared from above the panels of the walls. The remaining breadths of plaster bore countless round marks on its surface, suggesting that some man had designed a new and curious scheme of decoration, but had failed to realise his aims.
It was while Josephine and Pierce were examining these singular impressions on the wall that Guy explained their origin.
“The fact is,” he said, “we played a billiard or two last night, and as the tables hadn’t been used for five or six years, there was no chalk, but Galmyn, not to be beat, hit upon the notion of rubbing the tips of our cues against the plaster of the walls. The idea worked remarkably well.”
“It was worthy of the imagination, of a poet,” said Pierce, feeling the cushions of the table and laughing. “You must have had a joyous time over this table,” he added. “The cushions are clearly made of chilled steel.”
“They are a bit hard, aren’t they?” said Guy. “Yes, we found that they hadn’t much spring left in them.”
“Spring?” cried Mr. Galmyn. “Spring? No, there’s more that suggests winter than spring about them.”