I saw him myself and talked to him about it.
“But you see,” said he, when I had shown him our list of articles necessary for the furnishing of a house, “it would not pay me to buy all these things, and rent them out to you. If you only wanted heavy furniture, which would last for years, the plan would answer, but you want everything. I believe the small conveniences you have on this list come to more money than the furniture and carpets.”
“Oh, yes,” said I. “We are not so very particular about furniture and carpets, but these little conveniences are the things that make housekeeping pleasant, and,—speaking from a common-sense point of view,—profitable.”
“That may be,” he answered, “but I can't afford to make matters pleasant and profitable for you in that way. Now, then, let us look at one or two particulars. Here, on your list, is an ice-pick: twenty-five cents. Now, if I buy that ice-pick and rent it to you at two and a-half cents a year, I shall not get my money back unless it lasts you ten years. And even then, as it is not probable that I can sell that ice-pick after you have used it for ten years, I shall have made nothing at all by my bargain. And there are other things in that list, such as feather-dusters and lamp-chimneys, that couldn't possibly last ten years. Don't you see my position?”
I saw it. We did not get that furnished house. Euphemia was greatly disappointed.
“It would have been just splendid,” she said, “to have taken our book and have ordered all these things at the stores, one after another, without even being obliged to ask the price.”
I had my private doubts in regard to this matter of price. I am afraid that Euphemia generally set down the lowest price and the best things. She did not mean to mislead, and her plan certainly made our book attractive. But it did not work very well in practice. We have a friend who undertook to furnish her house by our book, and she never could get the things as cheaply as we had them quoted.
“But you see,” said Euphemia, to her, “we had to put them down at very low prices, because the model house we speak of in the book is to be entirely furnished for just so much.”
But, in spite of this explanation, the lady was not satisfied.
We found ourselves obliged to give up the idea of a furnished house. We would have taken an unfurnished one and furnished it ourselves, but we had not money enough. We were dreadfully afraid that we should have to continue to board.