The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1909-11-03
THE HOTEL CLERK ON
COLLECTING FURNITURE
BY IRWIN S. COBB.

some desirable hopeless crpples in the
household goods line
Amt your friend able to buy new
furniture fur his establishment" asked
the House Detective.
"Oh yes, indeed" said the Hotel Clerk.
He's got money enough to buy new fur
niture but not enough to buy old furni-
ture 1t makes his wife very unhappy.
She's ambitious socially and she knows
she'll never be able to sit in with the
Royal Frontage de Breezes of their apart
ment house. and draw cards until she's
able 10 back her play with a stack OF
paretic highboys and sckly settees and
the likes.
Il knowed the world wuz full of nuts,
said the House Detective. but l didn't
suppose there wuz anybody dippy enough
to want busted-up stuff litterin up the
house while there's installment stores on
every corner ready and willin to stake
you to full outfit fur a dollar down and
dollar more every time your name
comes into the collectors mind.
II didn't suppose SO either, until my
conversation with the Walterses,' said
the Hotel Clerk las | said to EN- when
! the subject first came up, If you want
mess of this totally disabled furniture,
says, If you won't be happy until all
the mahogany pensioners on the retired
why the Delaware, Lackawanna & West
ern don't you go out and buy it2' That's
just the trouble says Missis Walters.
on Arthur's salary we can't afford 1t,
she says. And then she went ahead
and told me the story of the two young
lives blighted because they can't turn
their coy home into a rest sanitarium
for rosewood invalids and ebony incur
ables.
when you and me were growing up,
Larry you'll remember that the newer
and SIMMER the furniture was the more
merit 1t acquired. There was the marble
topped centre table in the middle of the
parlor where we kept the Treasures OF
Prose volume and the family photograph
album with the deep luxuriant plush nap
! on It, That table represented the high
| est form of the noble art of shellacking.
| The hair sofa also stayed fresh and
slick because nobody but an armored
| knight with mail pants on, could sit
down on it and escaped being stabbed. The
/ magnificent crayon portrait OF Uncle
Henry enlarged from tintype likeness
| taken at the county fair one fall and
| showing Uncles Henry In the act of
wearing his annual collar, was enshrined
/ in a dazzling gold frame with tho gliding
spread on absolutely regardless. The
| bronze statuary group entitled, Bringing
| Home The Bride by the Rogers Broth
! ers was always carefully wrapped In
mosquito netting In ny time. and the
wreath of tin immortelles. that preserved
to us the memory of Cousin Hannah
| was kept under a glass dome and shone
! in the daylight like an artificial minnow.
now. All the old stuff went to the attic
or the company room, as soon as the var
: nish began to peel off of it. You could
| see yourself In the lid of the cottage or
! gan and in hot weather when you opened
| the parlor door, it smelled like walking
| into paint and oil store.
| "Stll further along we had the delight
full period of art woods, when we used
] to wake up of a morning and find the
birds eye maple footboard casting many