"And the bookcases?" I asked.
He looked downcast.
"You have bookcases?" he said.
"We have six."
He was about to say something, but I anticipated him.
"I know, of course," I said, "that the people who lived here before used to keep their books in the kitchen, but I hardly see how we could manage that. It's too much trouble, and besides I am somewhat absent-minded. It would be absurd if I should walk into the kitchen for a copy of 'Man and Superman,' and come back with half a grapefruit on a plate. And, furthermore, I like a library where a man can get up occasionally from his writing-table and pace up and down while he is clarifying his ideas. You couldn't do that here."
"There is a nice, long hall," he said. "You might pace up and down that." But he saw I was unconvinced, and he did not go to much pains in exhibiting the dining-room, merely remarking that it did look rather small, but the people who last lived in the apartment were accustomed to go out for their meals.
You will see now why I am so intensely interested in the tenants whose successors we were on the point of being. With life growing more flat and monotonous about us, how refreshing to come across a family which keeps a music-box in the nursery, does its reading in the bath-tub, and never eats in the dining-room. Is it studied originality on their part or are they born rebels? And how far does their eccentricity go? Does the head of the house, when setting out for his office in the morning, walk upstairs? Do they walk downstairs when they wish to go to bed?
I am still to meet these highly original citizens of New York, but their numbers must be increasing. Every year I hear of more and more former tenants who prefer dark rooms and libraries without shelf space. I have never asked the renting-agent why, being so contented with their surroundings, his tenants should have moved out. But probably it is because they have found an apartment where the rooms are still smaller and the windows have no sun at all.