wood running half way to the low ceiling badly smoked and blackened
by time, and had built two fireplaces--an open wood fire which laughed
at me from behind my own andirons, and an old-fashioned English grate
set into the chimney with wide hobs--convenient and necessary for the
various brews and mixtures for which the colonel was famous.

Midway, equally warmed by both fires, stood the table, its centre
freshened by a great dish of celery white and crisp, with covers for
three on a snow-white cloth resplendent in old India blue, while at
each end shone a pair of silver coasters,--heirlooms from Carter
Hall,--one holding a cut-glass decanter of Madeira, the other awaiting
its customary bottle of claret.

On the hearth before the wood fire rested a pile of plates, also
Indiablue, and on the mantel over the grate stood a row of bottles
adapting
themselves, like all good foreigners, to the rigors of our climate.
Add a pair of silver candelabra with candles,--the colonel despised
gas,--dark red curtains drawn close, three or four easy chairs, a few
etchings and sketches loaned from my studio, together with a modest
sideboard at the end of the L, and you have the salient features of
a room so inviting and restful that you wanted life made up of one
long dinner, continually served within its hospitable walls.

But I hear the colonel calling down the back stairs:--

"Not a minute over eighteen, Chad. You ruined those ducks last Sunday."

The next moment he had me by both hands.