40 FIVE ACHES TOO MUCH. 



where else ; that I would be robbed if the servants 

 were in the attic, and robbed and murdered if they 

 were on the ground floor ; that no house was worth 

 building unless it we re filled in with brick, and that 

 brick filling was a mere waste of money; that it 

 would be hot as an oven if it was not double board 

 ed, or if it was double boarded and not double plas 

 tered ; that every floor must be deafened, or that the 

 noise overhead would be unendurable, and that deaf 

 ening would be of no use whatever; that the roof 

 must be of gravel, or it would leak, and if made 

 of gravel it would break the entire building down ; 

 that oiling was the true mode of protecting the wood 

 work, and that nothing whatever but paint would an 

 swer ; that the natural wood was the most beautiful 

 trimming, and that only stained or painted wood 

 work was decent ; that the proper way was to paper 

 the walls, and that no paper would stick on fresh 

 walls. There was much more equally valuable ad 

 vice, for which I was exceedingly grateful, and de 

 sire again publicly to thank my friends. 



While ruminating over these statements and my 

 various different projects, I was struck with the ap 

 pearance of a neat little house in one of the streets 

 of the village. It was a parallelogram, which is the 

 most practical and economical shape for a house, and 



