family photographs, and pink-coloured reliefs of various Swedish kings
made out of wax and mounted under convex glass panes on highly polished
black boards. But all of those objects were flat and distant and
colourless in comparison with the things on the bureau that could be
touched as well as seen. As for the group with the lady and the
gentlemen, it had only one rival in the boy's mind, and that was the
big clock in a wooden case that hung on the wall between the windows
over the dining table. The hide-and-seek of the restless pendulum with
its shining brass disc was a constant source of fascination in itself,
and so were the strange operations performed by the father in front of
the clock every Sunday morning, when diversions were particularly
welcome on account of the extra restrictions on play. But its main charm
rested in the strangely pleasing sounds it produced every so often,
preceded by a funny rattle that warned small folk and big of what was
going to happen. It was Keith's first acquaintance with music.

The parents' bed occupied the centre of the right-hand wall, between
mamma's bureau and another chest of drawers known as "Granny's bureau."
It was all wood and made in two parts that slid into each other,
reducing the daytime width of the bed by one-half. It stood parallel to
the wall, instead of at right angles, and the extension took place
sideways. At night it looked like an ordinary double bed. In the day it
almost disappeared beneath a rectangular pile of bed-clothing, covered
by a snow-white spread that was pulled and smoothed and tucked until it
hung straight as a wall.

Granny's bureau, old-fashioned and clumsy, but made of some native wood
that glimmered like gold, was largely devoted to linen ware for bed and
table. At the top it had two small drawers instead of a long, and one of
these constituted the first storage place set aside for Keith's special