I assented.
He withdrew to fetch up the meal, and I looked about me with curiosity.
The room was a long one--perhaps fifty feet from end to end, and not less than ten paces broad.

It was wainscotted to the height of four feet from the ground, probably with oak, but the wood had been so larded with dark blue paint that its texture could not be discovered.
Above this wainscot the walls were covered with a fascinating paper.
The background of this was a greenish-blue, and upon it a party of red-coated riders in three-cornered hats blew large horns while they hunted a stag.

This pattern, striking enough in itself, became immeasurably more so when repeated a dozen times; for the stag of one hunt chased the riders of the next, and the riders chased the hounds, and so on in an unbroken procession right round the room.

The window at the bottom of the room stood high in the wall, with short blue curtains and a blue-cushioned seat beneath.

In the corner to the right of it stood a tall clock, and by the clock an old spinet, decorated with two plated cruets, a toy cottage constructed of shells and gum, and an ormolu clock under glass--the sort of ornament that an Agricultural Society presents to the tenant of the best-cultivated farm within thirty miles of somewhere or other.