"Well, now we come to a theory. Of course I have had no more experience than you in buying furniture, but it stands to reason that some of the things we buy now will be with us at death. Some furniture stays by you like a murder. For instance, a dining-room table. I have known some very rich people in my life, Aubrey, but I have seldom seen any who grew rich gradually who had had the moral courage to discard a dining-room table if it were even decently good. Have you ever thought about that?" "I can't say that I have, but it is fraught with possibility. 'The Ethics of Household Furniture' would make good reading." "Well, haven't you," I persisted, "in all seriousness, haven't you seen some very handsome modern dining-rooms marred by a dinner-table too good to throw away, which you were convinced the family had begun housekeeping with?" "Yes, I have!" cried Aubrey. "You are right, I have. I thought you were jesting at first." "Well, I am, sort of half-way. But the sort of dinner-table I want to buy is no joke. It is one which will grace an apartment or a palace. We can be proud of it even when we are rich. Yet it is not showy, or one which will be too screamingly prominent. It is of carved oak with the value all in the carving. It costs--" Here I whispered the price, for to us it was almost a crime to think of it. The Angel looked sober when my whisper reached him. But he did not commit himself. I eyed him anxiously. "But to make up for that outlay, here is the way I have planned the rest of the house. Let's have no drawing-room." "No drawing-room? Then where will you receive guests?" "The room will be there, and people may come into it and sit down, but it will not be familiar ground to strangers. They will find themselves in a cheerful room with soothing walls and comfortable chairs. There will be books and magazines. It will not be a library, for quantities of bookcases discourage the frivolous. It will have no gilt chairs, because big men always want to sit in them. It will have no lace curtains, because I hate them. The piano will be there and most of our wedding-presents,--all which lend themselves to the decoration of a room which will look as if people lived in it." "If you put bric-a-brac in it people will call it a parlour in spite of you," said the Angel. "Not at all. It will have one distinguishing feature which will effectually prevent the discriminating from making that mistake. I intend to make the clock on the mantel _go_. That will settle matters." "Of course." "This room will lack the stiffness of a drawing-room and so invite conversation, yet will be sufficiently dignified to prevent familiarity. I shall endeavour to invest it with an invitation which will practically say to your college friends, 'You may smoke here, but you may not throw ashes on the floor.' Do you see my point?" The Angel looked thoughtful. "I hope it will work," he said.