“Consequently we owe our preservation to the well-beloved poet.”

“Moral:  Study the poets.”

“Moral number two:  Build leaky casements.”

“Number three:  When the wood around a chimney takes fire it doesn’t prove a ‘defective flue.’”

“Number four:  A small fault hidden is more dangerous than a large one in sight.”

“Very true; and if modern builders had kept to the poet’s standard, and, like those in the elder days of art,

     ’wrought with greatest care,
     Each minute and hidden part,’

we should not be trembling before a black and ragged chasm in the wall, afraid to go to bed lest the fire should break out anew and burn us in our sleep.”

“There’s not the least danger.  We are as safe as a barrel of gunpowder in a mill pond.  There is nothing to set us on fire.  That bit of dry wood was the key to the whole situation.  We have captured that and can make our own terms.  Still, if you feel nervous we will sit up and ’talk house’ till the fire goes out.”

Jill acceded to this proposal and began to discourse, taking moral number four for a text.

“I wish it were possible,” said she, “to build a house with everything in plain sight, the chimneys, the hot-air pipes from the furnace, if there are any, the steam pipes, the ventilators, the gas pipes, the water pipes, the speaking tubes, the cranks and wires for the bells—­whatever really belongs to the building.  They might all be decorated if that would make them more interesting, but even if they were quite unadorned they ought not to be ugly.  If we could see them we shouldn’t feel that we are surrounded by hidden mysteries liable at any time to explode or break loose upon us unawares.  Those things that get out of order easily ought surely to be accessible.  I don’t believe there would have been half the trouble with plumbing, either in the way of danger to health or from dishonest and ignorant work, if it had not been the custom to keep it as much as possible out of sight.  There is a great satisfaction, too, in knowing that everything is genuine.”

“We might build a log house.  The logs are solid, and the chimney, if there happens to be one, won’t pretend to be of the same material as the walls of the building.”

“I like better the notion of letting the material of which brick walls and partitions are composed form the actual finish inside as well as outside.  The floors, too, should be bare, and the beams that support them ought to be visible, and in case of a wooden house, the posts, braces and other timbers should be left in sight when the building is finished.  It is a sad pity that modern modes of building, like modern manners and fashions, conceal actual construction and character, making a mask that may hide great excellence or absolute worthlessness.”

“Won’t all these pipes, wooden beams, bell ropes and things be fearfully dusty and cumber the housekeeper with too much serving?  I supposed you would vote for smooth, flat, hard wood and painted walls, they are so much easier to keep clean.”