The walls of the room never drew his notice. He had chosen, some years
before, a patent washable kind of wall-paper (which could be wiped
over with a damp cloth), and he had also chosen the pattern of the
paper, but it is a fact that he could spend hours in any room without
even seeing the pattern of its paper. (In the same way his wife's
cushions and little draperies and bows were invisible to him, though
he had searched for and duly obtained the perfect quality of swansdown
which filled the cushions.)
The one ornament of the walls which attracted him was a large and
splendidly-framed oil-painting of a ruined castle, in the midst of a
sombre forest, through which cows were strolling. In the tower of the
castle was a clock, and this clock was a realistic timepiece, whose
fingers moved and told the hour. Two of the oriel windows of the
castle were realistic holes in its masonry; through one of them you
could put a key to wind up the clock, and through the other you could
put a key to wind up the secret musical box, which played sixteen
different tunes. He had bought this handsome relic of the Victorian
era (not less artistic, despite your scorn, than many devices for
satisfying the higher instincts of the present day) at an auction sale
in the Strand, London. But it, too, had been supplanted in his esteem
by the mechanical piano-player.
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