Its windows looked out upon a strip of garden at the back, and the high creeper-grown wall that separated that domain from the next.
The furniture, too, was of the usual sort; a sensible round table stood in the middle, with three tall arm-chairs, with the proper angles and rests, drawn up to it; and the centre of it, resting apparently on a broad round column, held the dishes.

It was thirty years now since the practice of placing the dining-room above the kitchen, and of raising and lowering the courses by hydraulic power into the centre of the dining-table, had become universal in the houses of the well-to-do.

The floor consisted entirely of the asbestos cork preparation invented in America, noiseless, clean, and pleasant to both foot and eye.
Mabel broke the silence.
"And your speech to-morrow ?" she asked, taking up her fork.
Oliver brightened a little, and began to discourse.
It seemed that Birmingham was beginning to fret.

They were crying out once more for free trade with America: European facilities were not enough, and it was Oliver's business to keep them quiet.

It was useless, he proposed to tell them, to agitate until the Eastern business was settled: they must not bother the Government with such details just now.
He was to tell them, too, that the Government was wholly on their side; that it was bound to come soon.
"They are pig-headed," he added fiercely; "pig-headed and selfish; they are like children who cry for food ten minutes before dinner-time: it is bound to come if they will wait a little." "And you will tell them so ?" "That they are pig-headed?
Certainly." Mabel looked at her husband with a pleased twinkle in her eyes.