"Sets the room off, don't it?" remarked the fattest and most optimistic of the furniture men, as he consulted a memorandum in his hat. "Come in handy, won't it, when the missus wants to snatch a nap in the afternoon?"
The butler and the housemaid exchanged a glance of tolerant pity, but such benighted ignorance of social use was beyond enlightenment.
"Best give it a good brush-up to bring out the colors," the optimist admonished, surveying his late burden admiringly.
"I wouldn't touch it with the tongs," declared the housemaid, and the butler prophesied, "It won't stop long to gather dust where it is when the missus sets eyes on it once."
"Well," moralized the other, with a comprehensive glance about the room, "it's certainly a fact that rich folks does come in for all the luck."
And so saying he withdrew, accompanied by his mate, and the bolts were shot behind them.
"Our dinner will be getting cold," observed the butler. "Go down, Mary Anne, and tell the cook I'm coming, and I'll bring down the decanters. That sherry's hardly fit to serve upstairs again."
The housemaid sniffed.
"Be careful, Mr. Bates," she cautioned him. "The old butler, Auguste, was discharged because he found so many bottles of champagne that were unfit to serve upstairs."
"Auguste," rejoined the butler, "was a French duffer. He ought to have known that even broad-minded gentlemen always count champagne."