_]
One Day when the Provider struck the Premises he found the Workmen
putting Red Burlap on the Walls of the Sitting-Room.
"Why the Gunny-Sack?" he asked. "Can't we afford Wall-Paper?"
"Love of Art is the True Essence of the Higher Life," said the
AEsthete, and she began to read a Booklet bound in the same Paper that
the Butcher uses when he wraps up a Soup Bone.
"Come again," said the Wage Earner, who was slow at catching these
Ruskin Twisters.
"This is Art Burlap and not the kind that they use for sacking
Peanuts," explained the Disciple of Beauty. "Above the Burlap will be
a Shelf of Weathered Oak, and then above that a Frieze of Blue Jimson
Flowers. Then when we draw all of the Curtains and light one Candle in
here it will make a Swell Effect."
"I feel that we are going to be very Happy," he said, and then he
went out and sat behind the Barn, where he could smoke his Pipe and
meditate on the Uncertainties of Life.
[Illustration: _Artistic Dining-Room._]
Next Day he discovered that she had condemned his Rocking-Chair and
the old-style Centre Table on which he used to stack his Reading
Matter and keep a Plate of Apples handy.
When he entered the improved and modernized Living Room, he found
himself up against a Job Lot of Beauty and no Mistake.
All the Furniture was straight up and down. It seemed to have been
chopped out with an Axe, and was meant to hold up Members of the
Rhinoceros Family.
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