ceiling with "cuckoo's-egg green," while the parlor-maid and the cook
are on their knees, painting the floor with "sealing-wax red." The
old lady is doing the picture frames in "terra cotta." The eldest
daughter and her young man are making sly love in a corner over a pot
of "high art yellow," with which, so soon as they have finished
wasting their time, they will, it is manifest, proceed to elevate the
piano. Younger brothers and sisters are busy freshening up the chairs
and tables with "strawberry-jam pink " and "jubilee magenta." Every
blessed thing in that room is being coated with enamel paint, from the
sofa to the fire-irons, from the sideboard to the eight-day clock. If
there is any paint left over, it will be used up for the family Bible
and the canary.

It is claimed for this invention that a little child can make as much
mess with it as can a grown-up person, and so all the children of the
family are represented in the picture as hard at work, enameling
whatever few articles of furniture and household use the grasping
selfishness of their elders has spared to them. One is painting the
toasting fork in a "skim-milk blue," while another is giving
aesthetical value to the Dutch oven by means of a new shade of art
green. The bootjack is being renovated in "old gold," and the baby is
sitting on the floor, smothering its own cradle with
"flush-upon-a-maiden's cheek peach color."

One feels that the thing is being overdone. That family, before
another month is gone, will be among the strongest opponents of enamel
paint that the century has produced. Enamel paint will be the ruin of
that once happy home. Enamel paint has a cold, glassy, cynical
appearance. Its presence everywhere about the place will begin to
irritate the old man in the course of a week or so. He will call it,