The office dining-room, about which Blair had begun to be
impertinent when he was eight years old, was of noble proportions
and in its day must have had great dignity; but in Blair's
childhood its day was over. Above the dingy white wainscoting the
landscape paper his grandfather had brought from France in the
thirties had faded into a blur of blues and buffs. The floor was
uncarpeted save for a Persian rug, whose colors had long since
dulled to an even grime. At one end of the room was Mrs.
Maitland's desk; at the other, filing cases, and two smaller
desks where clerks worked at ledgers or drafting. The four French
windows were uncurtained, and the inside shutters folded back, so
that the silent clerks might have the benefit of every ray of
daylight filtering wanly through Mercer's murky air. A long table
stood in the middle of the room; generally it was covered with
blue-prints, or the usual impedimenta of an office. But it was
not an office table; it was of mahogany, scratched and dim to be
sure, but matching the ancient claw-footed sideboard whose top
was littered with letter files, silver teapots and sugar-bowls,
and stacks of newspapers. Three times a day one end of this table
was cleared, and the early breakfast, or the noon dinner, or the
rather heavy supper eaten rapidly and for the most part in
silence. Mrs. Maitland was silent because she was absorbed in
thought; Nannie and Blair were silent because they were afraid to
talk. But the two children gave a touch of humanness to the
ruthless room, which, indeed, poor little Blair had some excuse
for calling a "pigsty."

"When I'm big," Blair announced one afternoon after school, "I'll
have a bunch of flowers on the table, like your mother does; you