They'd note the bare floors, the sparse but
heavy furniture, the piano, the violin, the flute, the book-lined walls,
and the absence of every sort of curtain, cushion, or knickknack. 'Here
lived a plain man,' they'd say; 'a scholar, a musician, stern, unloved
and unloving; a monk.'
"And what next? They'd strike William's stratum next, the third floor.
Imagine it! You know William as a State Street broker, well-off,
a widower, tall, angular, slow of speech, a little bald, very much
nearsighted, and the owner of the kindest heart in the world. But really
to know William, you must know his rooms. William collects things. He
has always collected things--and he's saved every one of them. There's a
tradition that at the age of one year he crept into the house with four
small round white stones. Anyhow, if he did, he's got them now. Rest
assured of that--and he's forty this year. Miniatures, carved ivories,
bugs, moths, porcelains, jades, stamps, postcards, spoons, baggage tags,
theatre programs, playing-cards--there isn't anything that he doesn't
collect. He's on teapots, now. Imagine it--William and teapots! And
they're all there in his rooms--one glorious mass of confusion. Just
fancy those archaeologists trying to make their 'monk' live there!
"But when they reach me, my stratum, they'll have a worse time yet.
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