inking a lot of
cash in a house people can't see?" So there was not a bush, not a
flower. Inside---- One day Ball took me on a tour of the art shops.
"I've got a dozen corners and other big bare spots to fill," said he.
"Mrs. B. hates to give up money, haggles over every article. I'm going
to put the job through in business style." I soon discovered that I
had been brought along to admire his "business style," not to suggest.
After two hours, in which he bought in small lots about a carload of
statuary, paintings, vases and rugs, he said, "This is too slow." He
pointed his stick at a crowded corner of the shop. "How much for that
bunch of stuff?" he demanded. The proprietor gave him a figure. "I'll
close," said Joe, "if you'll give fifteen off for cash." The
proprietor agreed. "Now we're done," said Joe to me. "Let's go
downtown, and maybe I can pick up what I've dropped."

You can imagine that interior. But don't picture it as notably worse
than the interior of the average New York palace. It was, if anything,
better than those houses, where people who deceive themselves about
their lack of taste have taken great pains to prevent anyone else from
being deceived. One could hardly move in Joe's big rooms for the
litter of gilded and tapestried furniture, and their crowded walls
made the eyes ache.

The appearance of the man who opened the door for Anita and me
suggested that our ring had roused him from a bed where he had
deposited himself without bothering to take off his clothes. At the
sound of my voice, Ball peered out of his private smoking room, at the
far end of the hall. He started forward; then, seeing how I was
accompanied, stopped with mouth ajar. He had on a ragged smoking
jacket, a pair of shapeless old Romeo slippers, his ordinary business
waistcoat and trousers. He was wearing neither tie nor collar, and a
short, black pipe was between his fingers. We had evidently caught the
household stripped of "lugs," and sunk in the down-at-the-heel
slovenliness which it called "comfort." Joe was crimson with
confusion, and was using his free hand to stroke, alternately, his
shiny bald head and his heavy brown mustache. He got himself together
sufficiently, after a few seconds, to disappear into his den. When he
came out again, pipe and ragged jacket were gone, and he rushed for us
in a gorgeous gray velvet jacket with dark red facings, and a showy
pair of slippers.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Blacklock"--he always add