refusing to the bitter end to put the ax to the roots of the
ancestral oaks. I could imagine these parties readily, because I
had frequently read about both of them in the standard English
novels; and I had seen them depicted in all the orthodox English
dramas I ever patronized. But I did not notice in the appended
descriptions any extended notice of heating arrangements; most of
the advertisements seemed to slur over that point altogether.

And, as regards bathing facilities in their relation to the
capacities of these country places, I quote at random from the
figures given: Eighteen rooms and one bath; sixteen rooms and two
baths; fourteen rooms and one bath; twenty-one rooms and two baths;
eleven rooms and one bath; thirty-four rooms and two baths.
Remember that by rooms bedrooms were meant; the reception rooms
and parlors and dining halls and offices, and the like, were listed
separately.

I asked a well-informed Englishman how he could reconcile this
discrepancy between bedrooms and bathrooms with the current belief
that the English had a practical monopoly of the habit of bathing.
After considering the proposition at some length he said I should
understand there was a difference in England between taking a bath
and taking a tub--that, though an Englishman might not be particularly
addicted to a bath, he must have his tub every morning. But I
submit that the facts prove this explanation to have been but a
feeble subterfuge.

Let us, for an especially conspicuous example, take the house that
has thirty-four sleeping chambers and only two baths. Let us
imagine the house to be full of guests, with every bedroom occupied;