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The only persons one saw there were a couple of attendants who were laying out new pens and filling inkstands. "The women," said Massot with a laugh, after another glance at the galleries, "come here just as they might come to a menagerie, that is, in the secret hope of seeing wild beasts devour one another. But, by the way, did you read the article in the 'Voix du Peuple' this morning?
Crosses, crucifixes, rosaries, beads, glove-boxes, writing desks, inkstands, napkin rings, paper knives, and forks were offered as genuine wood from the olive trees of David's town, and the mother-of-pearl mementoes were carved with minute scenes of events in the life of Christ and of places in the Holy Land.
Silver teapots, coffeepots, sugar-basins, cream-jugs, fruit-dishes, silver-gilt inkstands, albums, photograph-books, little candlesticks, choice little services of china, shell salt-cellars in a case lined with maroon velvet; a Bible, superb in binding and clasps, and everything but the text that was illegible; a silk scarf from Benares; a gold chain from Delhi, six feet long or nearly; a Maltese necklace, a ditto in exquisite filagree from Genoa; English brooches, a trifle too big and brainless; apostle spoons; a treble-lined parasol with ivory stick and handle; an ivory card-case, richly carved; workbox of sandal-wood and ivory, etc.
But the tables in the library held only massive unused inkstands and immense immaculate blotters; not a single volume had slipped its golden prison. His loneliness had grown overwhelming, and he suddenly thought of Mrs. Heeny's clippings. His mother, alarmed by an insidious gain in weight, had brought the masseuse back from New York with her, and Mrs.
Snagsby has dealt in all sorts of blank forms of legal process; in skins and rolls of parchment; in paper foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white, whitey- brown, and blotting; in stamps; in office-quills, pens, ink, India- rubber, pounce, pins, pencils, sealing-wax, and wafers; in red tape and green ferret; in pocket-books, almanacs, diaries, and law lists; in string boxes, rulers, inkstands glass and leaden pen-knives, scissors, bodkins, and other small office-cutlery; in short, in articles too numerous to mention, ever since he was out of his time and went into partnership with Peffer.
The board-room had a Turkey carpet in it, a sideboard, a portrait of Tigg Montague, Esquire, as chairman; a very imposing chair of office, garnished with an ivory hammer and a little hand-bell; and a long table, set out at intervals with sheets of blotting-paper, foolscap, clean pens, and inkstands.
She never spoke to the waiters, but rung a golden bell; her inkstands, flower jars in short, every article on the table was of the same metal or of silver gilt.
What would be thought of a book-collector who took to standing inkstands or pepperboxes on the tops of his tallest volumes by way of adornment? Yet domes on business buildings are every bit as appropriate. A choice collection of those monstrosities graces Park Row, one much-gilded offender varying the monotony by looking like a yellow stopper in a high-shouldered bottle!
The people who could n't some of them don't know it when they see it would shut their inkstands, and we should n't be deluged by this flood of rubbish!"
In front of these gentlemen were papers and inkstands; and round the room, on elevated benches extending as far as the forms could reach, were assembled a brilliant concourse of those lovely and elegant women for which Mudfog is justly acknowledged to be without a rival in the whole world.
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