attention from the rough economies of his workmanship by an arresting
ornamentation of blobs and bulbs upon the joints and legs. Apparently
the piece had then been placed in the hands of some person of
infinite leisure equipped with a pot of ocherous paint, varnish,
and a set of flexible combs. This person had first painted the
article, then, I fancy, smeared it with varnish, and then sat down
to work with the combs to streak and comb the varnish into a weird
imitation of the grain of some nightmare timber. The washhandstand so
made had evidently had a prolonged career of violent use, had been
chipped, kicked, splintered, punched, stained, scorched, hammered,
dessicated, damped, and defiled, had met indeed with almost every
possible adventure except a conflagration or a scrubbing, until at
last it had come to this high refuge of Parload's attic to sustain
the simple requirements of Parload's personal cleanliness. There
were, in chief, a basin and a jug of water and a slop-pail of tin,
and, further, a piece of yellow soap in a tray, a tooth-brush, a
rat-tailed shaving brush, one huckaback towel, and one or two other
minor articles. In those days only very prosperous people had more
than such an equipage, and it is to be remarked that every drop
of water Parload used had to be carried by an unfortunate servant
girl,--the "slavey," Parload called her--up from the basement to
the top of the house and subsequently down again. Already we begin
to forget how modern an invention is personal cleanliness. It is a
fact that Parload had never stripped for a swim in his life; never
had a simultaneous bath all over his body since his childhood. Not
one in fifty of us did in the days of which I am telling you.

A chest, also singularly grained and streaked, of two large and
two small drawers, held Parload's reserve of garments, and pegs
on the door carried his two hats and completed this inventory