One of the most notable achievements of the apartment house architects is the duplex apartment, the little house within a house, with its two-story high living room, its mezzanine gallery with service rooms ranged below and sleeping rooms above, its fine height and spaciousness.  Most of the duplex apartments are still rather expensive, but some of them are to be had at rents that are comparatively low—­rents are always comparative, you know.

Fortunately, although it is a far cry financially from the duplex apartment to the tidy three-room flat of the model tenements, the “modern improvements” are very much the same.  The model tenement offers compact domestic machinery, and cleanliness, and sanitary comforts at a few dollars a week that are not to be had at any price in many of the fine old houses of Europe.  The peasant who has lived on the plane of the animals with no thought of cleanliness, or indeed of anything but food and drink and shelter, comes over here and enjoys improvements that our stately ancestors of a few generations ago would have believed magical.  Enjoys them—­they do say he puts his coal in the bath tub, but his grandchildren will be different, perhaps!

But enough of apartments in general.  This chapter is concerned with the small apartment sought by you young people who are beginning housekeeping.  You want to find just the proper apartment, of course, and then you want to decorate and furnish it.  Let me beg of you to demand only the actual essentials:  a decent neighborhood, good light and air, and at least one reasonably large room.  Don’t demand perfection, for you won’t find it.  Make up your mind just what will make for your happiness and comfort, and demand that.  You can make any place livable by furnishing it wisely.  And, oh, let me beg of you, don’t buy your furniture until you have found and engaged your apartment!  It is bad enough to buy furniture for a house you haven’t seen, but an apartment is a place of limitations, and you can so easily mar the place by buying things that will not fit in.  An apartment is so dependent upon proper fittings, skilfully placed, that you may ruin your chances of a real home if you go ahead blindly.

Before you sign your lease, be sure that the neighborhood is not too noisy.  Be sure that you will have plenty of light and air and heat.  You can interview the other tenants, and find out about many things you haven’t time or the experience to anticipate.  Be sure that your landlord is a reasonable human being who will consent to certain changes, if necessary, who will be willing for you to build in certain things, who will co-operate with you in improving his property, if you go about it tactfully.

Be sure that the woodwork is plain and unpretentious, that the lighting-fixtures are logically placed, and of simple construction. (Is there anything more dreadful than those colored glass domes, with fringes of beads, that landlords so proudly hang over the imaginary dining-table?) Be sure that the plumbing is in good condition, and beware the bedroom on an air shaft—­better pay a little more rent and save the doctor’s bills.  Beware of false mantels, and grotesque grille-work, and imitation stained glass, and grained woodwork.  You couldn’t be happy in a place that was false to begin with.