so in the dining-room. The Chippendale
dining-table gleamed like a sombre translucent pool. On the sideboard,
amid the array of shining silver, the very best old Waterford
decanters filled with whisky and brandy, and old cut-glass goblets
invited him to refreshment. The precious mezzotint portraits, mostly
of his own collecting, regarded him urbanely from the walls. _The
Times_ and the _Morning Post_ were laid out on the little table by his
accustomed chair near the massive marble mantelpiece.

"The dear old idiots," said Doggie, and he sat down for a moment and
unfolded the newspapers and strewed them around, to give the
impression that he had read and enjoyed them.

And then he went into his own private and particular den, the peacock
and ivory room, which had been the supreme expression of himself and
for which he had ached during many nights of misery. He looked round
and his heart sank. He seemed to come face to face with the
ineffectual, effeminate creature who had brought upon him the disgrace
of his man's life. But for the creator and sybarite enjoyer of this
sickening boudoir, he would now be in honoured command of men. He
conceived a sudden violent hatred of the room. The only thing in the
place worth a man's consideration, save a few water-colours, was the
honest grand piano, which, because it did not aesthetically harmonize
with his squeaky, pot-bellied theorbos and tinkling spinet, he had
hidden in an alcove behind a curtain. He turned an eye of disgust on
the vellum backs of his books in the closed Chippendale cases, on the
drawers containing his collection of wall-papers, on the footling
peacocks, on the curtains and cushions, on the veined ivory paper
which, beginning to fade two years ago, now looked mean and
meaningless. It was an abominable room. It ought to be smelling of
musk or pastilles or joss-sticks. It might have done so, for once he
had tried something of the sort, and did not renew the experiment only
because the smell happened to make him sick.

There was one feature of the room at which for a long time he avoided
looking: but wherever he turned, it impressed itself on his
consciousness as the miserable genius of the despicable place. And
that was his collection of little china dogs.

At last he planted himself in front of the great glass cabinet, whence
thousands of little dogs looked at him out of little black dots of
eyes. There were dogs of all nationalities, all breeds, all twisted