Speaking of having furniture boxed carries me back to the time when we lived in Pennsylvania and I bought many things of a pleasant old rascal who just managed to keep out of jail.  One time he showed me a lovely old table of that ruddy glowing mahogany that adds so much to a room.  I said I would take it, but told him not to send it home till afternoon.  I wanted time to break it to J——­ after a good luncheon.  J——­ was very amiable and approving, and urged me to have it sent up, so I went down to the shop to see about it.  To my dismay I found it neatly crated and just being loaded into a wagon.  I called frantically to my rascally friend, who tried to slip out of the back door unobserved, but in vain.  I fixed him with an accusing eye.

“What are you doing with my table?” I demanded.

“Did you really want it?” he queried.

“Of course I want it.  Didn’t I say I’d take it?” I was annoyed.

“Oh, well,” to his men, “take it off, boys.”  “You see,” turning to me, “a man from Seattle was in after you left, and he said he’d take that round table over there if I’d sell him this one too.  I showed him another one every bit as good as this, but he wouldn’t look at it; still, I guess I’ll box it up in that crate with his round one, and when it gets to Seattle I reckon he won’t want to send it way back.  It’s a long way to Seattle!”

“That’s your business, not mine,” I remarked coldly, though I felt an unholy desire to laugh.  “Just send mine home before any one else tempts you.”

I still sleep in a Hepplewhite four-poster that he wheedled out of an old Pennsylvania Dutch woman for a mere song.  The posts at the head were sawed off so that the bed could stand in a room with a sloping ceiling, but, fortunately, the thrifty owner had saved the pieces instead of using them for firewood, so I have had them neatly stuck on again.

I think perhaps a subconscious recollection of his methods was what made me so successful with the hat-rack.

War work has brought out much latent ability of this kind.  Lilies of the field, who had never needed to toil or spin for themselves, were glad to do so for the Red Cross.  In Pasadena we had a small Spanish street (inside a building), with tiny shops on either side, where you could buy anything from an oil painting to a summer hat.  In front was a gay little plaza with vines and a fountain, where lunch and tea were served by the prettiest girls in town in bewitching frilled caps with long black streamers and sheer lawn aprons over blue and green frocks.  The Tired Business Men declined to lunch anywhere else, and there was a moment when we feared it might have to be given up, as there was some feeling in town on account of the vacant stools at their old-time counters!  It all went to prove that you don’t need to be brought up in “trade” to be a great success at it.