“It’s against the rules of the museum,” stated the bass voice.
I entered the gallery at this moment and saw a fat and agitated museum attendant, owner of the bass voice, expostulating with a small man in a brown suit, the tenor, who was reclining on an enormous gilt, canopied, four-poster bed of florid design.
“Oh, very well,” said the man on the bed. “I don’t think much of it as a bed, anyhow. I wouldn’t have it in my house.”
Saying this, he rose from the bed and I saw that he was Hosmer Appleby.
“Oh, you wouldn’t, wouldn’t you?” said the attendant, loyal to his charge. “Well, it was good enough for Napoleon, that there bed was.”
“Steel beds are more sanitary,” said Appleby. Then turning to me, “Don’t you think so?”
He spoke as if I’d been with him all the time. He had the same absorbed expression, the same intent, intense look.
“How’s the house?” I asked. “Are you enjoying living in it?”
“Living in it? Why, I haven’t started to build it yet!” he told me as we strolled through the collection of Sheraton furniture, which he now and then stopped to poke.
“No,” he continued, “I haven’t found a site. Haven’t the money, anyhow. But I’m looking. I suppose I’ve looked at five hundred sites since I saw you, and have got forty earaches listening to real-estate agents. I’m in no great hurry. The perfect house on the perfect site—that’s my plan.”