varnish-pot

Updated: June 3, 2025

There was a plain wooden mantelpiece, a wide fireplace with big brass andirons, a sideboard with and without brass handles and a limited number of claw feet, which if brought under the spell of the scraper and varnish-pot might once more regain its lost estate, a corner-cupboard built into the wall, half full of fragments of old china, and, to do justice to the major's former statement, there was also a pair of dull old mahogany doors with glass knobs separating the room from some undiscovered unknown territory of bareness and emptiness beyond.

Francis Hopkinson Smith - A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others