The Daguerrotype

Bressant occupied two adjoining rooms at Abbie's boarding-house; one
contained his bed and the other was fitted up as his study. They were on
the second floor of the house, and attainable through two turns in the
lower entry, a winding flight of narrow stairs, and an uncertain, darkly
erratic route above.

The study was some twelve feet by eight; the floor ornamented by a
carpet which, to judge from the size of the pattern, must have been
designed to grace some fifty-foot drawing-room. The furniture consisted
of a deal table with a folding leaf, a chair, a stove--which, perhaps
because it was so small, had been permitted to remain all summer--and a
broad-seated lounge with squeaky springs, but quite roomy and
comfortable, which monopolized a large portion of the room. The walls
were papered with a bewildering diamond pattern, in blue and white. Upon
the outside window-sill stood a pot of geraniums, and another of
heliotrope.

A good many books were stowed away in various parts of the study; piled
one upon another in the corner by the stove, ranged side by side beneath
the lounge, carefully disposed upon the inner window-sill, and occupying
as much space as could be spared to them on the table. There were few
ornaments to be seen; no landscapes or hunting-scenes--no pictures of
pretty women--no fancy pieces for the mantel--no wine either, nor
cigars, for Bressant neither smoked nor drank. A beautifully-finished
and colored drawing of a patent derrick, in plan and side elevation, was
pinned to the wall opposite the window. Above the mantel-piece hung an
ingeniously-contrived card almanac, by which the day of week and month
could be told for a hundred years to come. Two small globes, terrestrial
and astronomical, stood upon the table; on the mantel-piece was an
ordinary kerosene-lamp, with a conical shade of enamelled green paper,
arabesqued in black, and ornamented with three transparencies,
representing (when the lamp was lighted) bloody and fiery scenes in the
late war; but in the daytime appearing to be nothing more terrible than
plain pieces of white tissue-paper.