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They entered the room, which contained a bed, a trunk, a wash-stand, and a chair. "One of you can take the chair; the other can sit on the trunk," said the hack driver, nodding toward these articles. Then he proceeded to strop a razor at one of the windows. "Excuse me if I go on with this reaping. I must go out and feed the horse, and then get breakfast."
After a long, absent-minded look over the meadows towards the sea, where the waves were darkening in the twilight, he arose in haste, threw off his wrapper, a gray merino affair, trimmed with quilted crimson silk, that Prudence had given him on a birthday three years ago, and went to the wash-stand to bathe his face and brush back that mass of black hair.
Suspicion first fell upon a new boarder unaccustomed to the ways of the house, who, it was reported, had double-locked herself in at the first crash of the drum, and who had admitted, on being cross-examined by McFudd, that she had nearly broken her back in trying to barricade her bedroom door with a Saratoga trunk and a wash-stand.
A large coloured print of Mary and the Babe in a gilt frame hung over the wash-stand, and next to it a college pennant was tacked over a photograph of his graduating class. Several Navajo blankets covered most of the floor and a couple of guns stood in a corner. When he was in bed his overstimulated state of mind became a torment. He rolled and tossed, beset by exciting images and ideas.
The room was furnished with the barest necessities, like most country rooms in Italy. There were wooden pegs on which to hang clothes instead of a wardrobe, an iron bedstead, a deal wash-stand, a small deal table, a rush-bottomed chair. The room had only one window, which was also the only door, opening to the floor upon the verandah.
On the night of the inquirer's call, she was pathetically concerned lest her visitor should catch cold because "she wasn't used to it." She lighted a small candle to show her the room, furnished with one straight hard chair, a cot, and a wash-stand with a broken pitcher, but with barely space besides for Mrs. Clark and her kind, public-spirited little hostess.
A tiny single bed ran along one side of it; jammed against the foot of the bed was a tiny table. A tiny chair stood at the table; behind the chair stood a tiny bureau; beside the bureau, the tiniest little iron wash-stand in the world. In the chair sat a man, not tiny, indeed, but certainly nobody's prize giant.
"Didn't you put any soda in it?" "It never occurred to me. I just nipped into the dining-room and drank out of the decanter." "How much?" "Oh, about ten swallows. Twelve, maybe. Or fourteen. Say sixteen medium-sized gulps. Gosh, I'm thirsty." He moved over to the wash-stand and drank deeply out of the water bottle. I cast a covert glance at Uncle Tom's photograph behind his back.
Opening the door of the small room referred to, she showed a neat bed, a chair, a wash-stand, and a few hooks from which clothing might be hung. It was plain enough, but there was an air of neatness which did not characterize his present room. "I like the room," he said, brightening up. "How much do you charge for this room and board?" "Four dollars.
Her hats are in their boxes on the shelves, her shoes in their bag. Her bureau is orderly, the silver clean and shining. Her hair-brush is washed at least once a week, to keep it white and fresh, and the comb is never allowed to have bits of hair in it, but is as clean as the brush. Her wash-stand is always perfectly clean and tidy, and nothing is ever left about in the room.
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