pick out your rooms, you are in for something hideous."

"Hideous, darling?" cried Tristram.

"To-day I must say nothing wicked; otherwise I should use stronger
language."

"What do you think she would say, Newman?" asked Tristram. "If she
really tried, now? She can express displeasure, volubly, in two or three
languages; that's what it is to be intellectual. It gives her the start
of me completely, for I can't swear, for the life of me, except in
English. When I get mad I have to fall back on our dear old mother
tongue. There's nothing like it, after all."

Newman declared that he knew nothing about tables and chairs, and that
he would accept, in the way of a lodging, with his eyes shut, anything
that Tristram should offer him. This was partly veracity on our hero's
part, but it was also partly charity. He knew that to pry about and look
at rooms, and make people open windows, and poke into sofas with his
cane, and gossip with landladies, and ask who lived above and who
below--he knew that this was of all pastimes the dearest to Tristram's
heart, and he felt the more disposed to put it in his way as he was
conscious that, as regards his obliging friend, he had suffered the
warmth of ancient good-fellowship somewhat to abate. Besides, he had no
taste for upholstery; he had even no very exquisite sense of comfort
or convenience. He had a relish for luxury and splendor, but it was
satisfied by rather gross contrivances. He scarcely knew a hard chair
from a soft one, and he possessed a talent for stretching his legs which
quite dispensed with adventitious facilities. His idea of comfort was to
inhabit very large rooms, have a great many of them, and be conscious of