The room where the doorman left us went with the inside of the house. So small it reminded me of the times when I tried to sell brushes during the depression, in Grosse Pointe, I expected every moment to have an underpaid maid, laundress, and butler come in to tell me that the lady of the house was out. In keeping with the faded appointments of the tiny room, a Chinese table held, for those who wait and read, an ancient collection of "Spur" and "Town and Country." As we sat and smoked, far off through the thin walls we could hear the soft rumble of voices. Occasionally a bass would rise above the sound, and a baritone would slide softly and soothingly across the pained roar. The front door opened and closed twice during the fifteen minutes or so we waited, and the footsteps that came in went past our room and pattered further down the hall. Each time, when the steps were out of reach of hearing, another door would open, and the distant voices would become almost distinguishable until the door again was shut. I looked curiously around the walls. Decorated with prints and pictures they were, yes, but with that faded permanency that to me spells the furnished house. The rugs were worn, worn to the shredding point, worn until the spurious Oriental design seemed an eerie Dali drawing. All it needed was the faroff smell of secondhand ham and cabbage. The doorman slipped in and beckoned to us, a grim conspirator if ever I saw one. We followed him back to the entrance hall, back, back, to where the voices grew louder at every step. A double door--golden oak, or I don't know wood--barred the end of the hall, and the young fellow preceded us to throw it open with a semi-flourish. We walked in. The place was blue with smoke. That was the first thing we saw. Lights there were in plenty, hanging around, hanging over the great oval table in the center of the room in a fiery glitter of glassy brilliants. The room was enormous, and I began to realize why this house was still in existence. Who cares about rugs if there is just one single room in the house where a ball or a party could be comfortably accommodated. Or a conference. I didn't know whose name appeared on the tax bills, but I would bet that it would be any other name besides the United States Government.