The floors of the native houses are made of teak planks, or more usually of plaited bamboo. Through the holes that are left, the air comes up from below, keeping the rooms cool, but at the same time filling them with most unpleasant odours. A great deal of the ordinary domestic refuse is got rid of by the simple plan of pushing it through the holes in the floor, and leaving it to rot in the space between the house and the ground. Fortunately for the health of the inhabitants, pariah dogs abound everywhere. They feed chiefly on this refuse, thus playing the part of scavengers. The pariahs have no owners, and no one takes any care or notice of them. They are thin and bony, frightfully ugly, fond of barking at all hours of the day or the night, but not given to biting, for they are thorough cowards. A hundred of them would run away from a small boy, provided he had a big stick in his hand. The number of rooms in the house is always an odd one, for even numbers are considered unlucky. A small house would contain at least three rooms, which we may call the drawing-room, the bedroom, and the kitchen. The third of these rooms will be described in the next chapter. The drawing-room contains no chairs, tables, pianos, or pictures. In fact, it contains no furniture of any kind, with perhaps the exception of a few mats on the floor, on which the people sit. When visitors call, they are offered tea in tiny cups that hold about as much as a big table-spoon. This tea, which is taken without milk or sugar, is of a beautiful light golden colour, and has a faint but pleasant and refreshing odour. The chief thing offered to the visitor is betel-nut, the fruit of the tall, slender areca-palm. So important a part does the betel-nut play in the daily life of the native, that, if possible, a house is always built near a grove of areca-palms, in order that there may be a never-failing supply of the nut. Betel is not eaten alone, but with a mixture of turmeric, seri-leaf, lime, and tobacco. Chewing betel produces copious supplies of blood-red saliva. If this is ejected upon wood or stone, it leaves nasty rusty-red stains that cannot be removed even by the most diligent scrubbing. Hence a spittoon is a very necessary domestic article. Everybody chews; everybody possesses spittoons. You will see them by the side of the mother rocking the cradle, by the side of the teacher in the school, by the side of the judge in the law courts, by the side of the priest as he chants his matin or evensong in the temple, by the side of the King as he sits upon his throne. In time, the teeth become coal-black. They are then regarded as being much more beautiful than when they were white. A native saying runs: "Any dog can have white teeth." In Bangkok the American dentists keep supplies of false black teeth, and when a prince or a nobleman loses one of his own teeth, he can buy another black one and so not spoil his appearance.