You can take it
away with you to another house when you move. But there is the
dinner-bell. I'll show you over the establishment after we have
had something to eat."
After our meal we made a tour of inspection. The flat, which
included the whole floor, contained nine or ten rooms, of all
shapes and sizes. The corners in some of the rooms were cut off
and shaped up into closets and recesses, so that Euphemia said the
corners of every room were in some other room.
Near the back of the flat was a dumb-waiter, with bells and
speaking-tubes. When the butcher, the baker, or the kerosene-lamp
maker, came each morning, he rang the bell, and called up the tube
to know what was wanted. The order was called down, and he brought
the things in the afternoon.
All this greatly charmed Euphemia. It was so cute, so complete.
There were no interviews with disagreeable trades-people, none of
the ordinary annoyances of housekeeping. Everything seemed to be
done with a bell, a speaking-tube or a crank.
"Indeed," said the ex-boarder, "if it were not for people tripping
over the wires, I could rig up attachments by which I could sit in
the parlor, and by using pedals and a key-board, I could do all the
work of this house without getting out of my easy-chair."
One of the most peculiar features of the establishment was the
servant's room. This was at the rear end of the floor, and as
there was not much space left after the other rooms had been made,
it was very small; so small, indeed, that it would accommodate only
a very short bedstead.
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