I need not say that Blank, being a man of an original turn of mind, with the decorative bump strongly developed, holds what are at present peculiar views upon wall papers, room tones, and so on. The day is dark and gloomy, yet once within the halls of Blank there is sweetness and light.
You must look through the open door into a luminous little chamber covered with a soft wash of lemon yellow.
From the antechamber we passed through the open door into a large drawing-room, of the same soft lemon-yellow hue. The blinds were down, the fog reigned without, and yet you would have thought that the sun was in the room.
Here let me pause in my description, and put on record the gist of our conversation concerning the Home of Taste.
"Now, Mr. Blank, would you tell me how you came to prefer tones to papers?"
"Here the walls used to be covered with a paper of a sombre green, which oppressed me and made me sad," said Blank. 'Why cannot I bring the sun into the house,' I said to myself, 'even in this land of fog and clouds?' Then I thought of my experiment and invoked the aid of the British house-painter. He brought his colours and his buckets, and I stood over him as he mixed his washes.
"One night, when the work was nearing completion, one of them caught sight of himself in the mirror, and remarked with astonishment upon the loveliness of his own features. It was the lemon-yellow beautifying the British workman's flesh tones.
"I assure you the effect of a room full of people in evening dress seen against the yellow ground is extraordinary, and," added Blank, "perhaps flattering."
"Then do I understand that you would remove all wall papers?"
"A good ground for distemper," chuckled Mr. Blank.