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The plain rush-bottomed chairs and sober carpet, in contrast with the dark, solid mahogany table, and the silver branched candle-stick which stood upon it, hinted of former wealth and present loss; and something of the same contrast was reflected in the habits of the inmates.
In a small room, round a little broken table, one of the legs of which had given way from age, on which table they had deposited a quire of letter-paper, and a writing desk 'a calamet', which luckily they had had the precaution to bring with them from the Committee of Public safety, seated on four rush-bottomed chairs, in front of some logs of wood ill-lighted, the whole borrowed from the porter Dupont; who would believe that it was in this deplorable condition that the member's of the new Government, after having examined all the difficulties, nay, let me add, all the horrors of their situation, resolved to confront all obstacles, and that they would either deliver France from the abyss in which she was plunged or perish in the attempt?
The double-bedded room is a double-bedded room still, with its old four-posters, and is shown with great pride to visitors from all over the world as "Mr. Pickwick's room." The beds are still hung with old-fashioned curtains, and a rush-bottomed chair has its place there, as it did during Mr. Pickwick's visit.
There is another principle which can be brought into play in this case, and that is the one of buying not a costly kind of thing, but the best of its kind. If it is a choice in chairs, for instance, let it be the best cane-seated, or rush-bottomed chair that is made, instead of the second or third best upholstered or leather-covered one.
The open door displayed a rough, uncovered floor; a few old rush-bottomed chairs; a bedstead with a patch-work calico quilt, the mattress swagging in the centre and showing the badly arranged cords below; strings of bright red pepper hanging from the dark rafters; a group of tow-headed, grave-faced, barefooted children; and, occupying almost one side of the room, a broad, deep, old-fashioned fireplace, where winter and summer a lazy fire burned under a lazy pot.
In an angle by the fireplace was a three-cornered cupboard, and between the front windows stood a chest of drawers with glass knobs. On the chest lay a big Bible, a hymn-book, and several more well-thumbed volumes. A large deal table with hinged leaves, a rude stand covered with a towel, several rush-bottomed chairs, and the rocker constituted the chief items of furniture.
With the same hasty steps as he had come, Commissioner Kraus again hastened down the steps, and once more plunged into the tumult of the street. After a short walk, he again entered a house and ascended the stairs to a door in the fourth story beside which, in a rush-bottomed chair, sat a servant, with his head bowed on his breast, sleeping peacefully.
It had a rush-bottomed seat to it, and for the first few moments she worried about in it, trying vainly to make herself comfortable. "What would you do?" he asked quietly, filling a well-burnt pipe from a tobacco-jar. She took this as encouragement jumped to it, as an animal to the food above it. "Do? Well, first of all I'd have a nice thick carpet."
And slowly, with her eyes veiled by tears, she glanced round the wretched lodging, furnished with a walnut chest of drawers, minus one drawer, three rush-bottomed chairs, and a little greasy table, on which stood a broken water-jug. There had been added, for the children, an iron bedstead, which prevented any one getting to the chest of drawers, and filled two-thirds of the room.
To the right of them stretched away the main body of the church, one half of it the half nearest them being fitted with pews, while the other half, toward the great west door, was furnished with common rush-bottomed chairs, evidently intended for the use of casual worshippers and the lower orders generally.
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