s! Let him have the children make a steamboat of him
as they do of me! Let him have some awkward fellow rack his joints by
sitting on him and leaning back against the wall. Then let him talk about
nerves! It's hard enough, sir, to have to be used in that fashion without
being compelled to associate, as we have to, with those low, wooden
fellows, and then have to listen to the abuse of that pampered,
good-for-nothing dandy in damask satin, that----"

"I trust," said the easy chair, "that the debate will not proceed in this
way. I am sorry that so much discontent is manifested. The life of a
chair is certainly not altogether unpleasant; at least I have not found
it so."

"Sir," said one of the kitchen chairs, "I know I am wooden, but I was
made so; and I know I am black, but, as you observed awhile ago, that is
a question of paint."

"A mere question of paint," said the easy chair again, evidently
delighted to have his witticism quoted.

"But, sir," continued the wooden chair, "when I was new I was not to be
laughed at. If I was black, I was varnished brightly and glistened
beautifully when the chair-maker set me and my brothers, here, out in a
row in the sun. And then, sir, we each had a large yellow rose on our
foreheads, and I assure you we were beautiful in our own way, sir, in our
way. But, sir, you talk about the life of a chair not being altogether
unpleasant. Perhaps not, for an easy chair, so nicely cushioned as you
are. Every time our owner sits down in your arms she says, 'Well, this is
just the most comfortable seat in the world!' But nobody ever praises me.
If a neighbor drops in and takes me or one of my fellows, the mistress
just says, 'Don't take that uncomfortable chair,' and immediately offers
one of these cane-seats. That's the way we're insulted, sir; and when
anybody wants a chair to stand on, the mistress says, 'Take a wooden
one.' Just see the marks of Johnny's boot nails on me now, and that
scratch, caused by Bridget's using me and one of my fellows to put the
washtub on!"

The black chair subsided with the look of an injured individual, and the
high chair commenced to complain, but was interrupted by the sewing
chair, who thought that "females had some rights." She was silenced,
however, by my grandmother's old chair, who leaned on the table while she
spoke. The old lady complained of the neglect of old age by the younger
generation.

Just at this moment, as the meeting was getting into a h