The New York herald., 1922-10-01


1 wrote Adelaide in an expansive moment
Adelaide was one who permitted nothing
to interfere with her flair as a collector OF
household furnishings.
BY means Of a sixty horsepower latest
creation. top gear touring car. with brakes
on all four wheels-and which were needed
she came from Paris southwark across
the Spanish frontier to the gay Catalan
capitalof Barcelona to look me up-which
meant for me to look up the Spanish ma
which meant-but you will see! There
was a husband. of course. but he took only
a paying part in the drama of the House
That Jack Furnished"
With difficulty I persuaded Adelaide to
hide her automobile in one of the art nou-
veau garages. put her Paris clothes back
in the "indestructible" and her pearls In a
bank vault and wear a dress at least O
month old. This as a preliminary strategic
move in a ramble after bargains in old
caoba. or Spanish mahogany. with strain
in it's grain which looks like melted gold,
that exhales the romance of daring days
doubloons and pieces of eight, that reflects
in its shining surface the mystery of gone
by days in medieval homes of stately dons
and autocratic grandees. days long since
before it was turned over to the second
hand dealer and became merely trastos
ercusdd0s.
Barcelona has beautiful boulevards.
'ramblas." they call them, which explains
why we had to ramble. an incident you will
find accounted for quite clearly later on.
Through the brilliant "Rambla of the
Flowers" the green flecked "Rambla of the
Singing Birds" the "Rambla of the Beau
tiful Shade" and half a dozen other plane
tree and palm tree shaded ramblas, along
whose lengths all Barcelona surges gayly,
ceaselessly, day and night, paying toll to
the blind musicians of the tinkling guitars.
dodgifg flocks of odorous (but otherwise
cleanly) brown goats, purveyors of the
city's pure milk supply from door to door.
we finally arrive in the busy quarter where
the streets, or Gales, themselves are the
open air shops and the sidewalks the
counters.
Here in these al fresco lumber rooms
cuartos de desdho0o-we waded through all
manner of plunder, old and new, pushing
between bulky Spanish women yelled in
black mantillas, turbaned ninerds, gipsys in
bright fringed, silken shawls, swarthy men
in capas. little panier laden burros, white
boo5ad bfcb ,,,baa1ad trrfnnne evarrpS nj
polite beggars-not a few of them locOs
from the madhouse; picturesque porters in
blue blouses and red caps, with ropes and
straps over shoulders, waiting without i'm
patience the inevitable mdndnd when they
will take your purchase of despojos, odds
and ends, home for you.
I led Adelaide warily into the "Street of
the Old Furniture Dealers" where in
curious stone. tile rooted shacks are
housed the old furniture treasures. as
large a quantity in the unnecessarily
caoba and golden encind-as may be found
in any like area in all Europe.
"But these are stables!" gasped Ade-
laide, fresh from the magnifcently staged
antique shops of the chic spas and mon
daine resorts of Europe. NO" I assured
her, "just the aboriginal antique shop be-
fore it is dressed up for the tourist
though they don't even call them antique
shops; indeed, one may not even hint thai
their commerce suggests the hoary tradi-
tons of antiquarianism Sin any way"
Now to find Jose, the head of the con-
sortium which controls most of the traffic
of the ''Street of Old Furniture Dealers"
but the shops are all closed!" ex
cia iairnnd Adelaida In cha grin But Ada.