December, 1917 
59 
TRAILING the CHINESE RUG 
The Tale of a Wild Search Through Manhattan 
and of the Scotchman Who Beat the Game 
CLIFFORD POP PL ETON 
I T MAY be that you will never want a Chinese 
rug as achingly as we did, and if you feel quite 
sure of your own power of restraint it will be 
all right to glance hurriedly through this simple nar¬ 
rative; but don’t say afterwards, if you weaken, that 
you were lured on and ate the apple (I mean bought 
the rug) because a serpentine article tempted you. 
Let it be clearly understood before we go a step 
further that Chinese rugs are the thing in New York 
just now. Why, 1 do not know, but that they are is 
plain as a pike-staff; the Fifth Avenue stores are 
mandarinesque to a degree. 
Tardily discovering this some three weeks after 
the Vanderfeller boys had bought theirs, Marmalade 
firmly stated that we simply had to have an antique 
Chinese rug. Knowing something about the price 
per square inch of these articles I asked him if he 
was going to sell out his Bethlehem Steel, but he is 
the sort of Scotsman you cannot put off, and it was 
with compassion in my heart that I accompanied 
him on that memorable day when he set out, with 
one hundred and two dollars in his pocket, to pur¬ 
chase an antique Chinese rug. 
W HILE he was cranking up our little jigger I 
went back into the house to fetch a red volume 
that had something in it about rugs and carpets. 
Taking advantage of his period of inac¬ 
tivity while we were crossing the river on 
the ferry at Fort Lee I read one para¬ 
graph aloud. 
“The soul of the apartment is the 
carpet. From it are deduced not 
only the hues but the forms of all 
objects incumbent. A judge at com¬ 
mon law may be an ordinary man; 
a good judge of a carpet must be a 
genius. Yet we have heard discours¬ 
ing of carpets with the air ‘d’un 
mouton qui reve,’ fellows who should 
not and who could not be entrusted 
with the management of their own 
moustaches.” 
“Fudge,” said Marmalade. 
“That’s Poe you’re fudging.” 
“I thought as much. Didn’t he say 
also that the Chinese and most of the 
eastern races had, touching internal dec¬ 
oration, a ‘warm but inappropriate 
fancy’ ?” 
“Yes, but no one knew anything about 
Chinese rugs then, or for half a century 
after; they couldn’t see China for Persia.” 
“He ought to have been above the gen¬ 
eral ignorance to lay down the law. Any¬ 
way, I know the sort of rug I want.” 
“You know what you like, don’t you, 
Marmalade?” The cliche is the chief 
staple of his conversation, and I always 
supply him with one when he runs short. 
He listened to the voice of reason suffi¬ 
ciently, however, to stop at the 42nd Street 
library and permit me to read to him a 
paragraph out of another book: 
“The alleged antique rug may have 
been treated with lemon juice and 
oxalic acid, for example, to change 
its flaring reds into old shades, or 
with coffee to give it the yellow of 
years. Its lustre may be born of 
glycerine. Its hues have perhaps been 
dulled by smoke. It may have been 
buried in the ground and then reno¬ 
vated, sandpapered back and front 
to give it the thinness of old age, 
and for the sheer decrepitude of an 
almost sacred antique, hammered and 
combed at the sides and ends and 
casual spots on the surface.” 
He dismissed that with a shrug; he 
said we should go to a good store where 
they would treat us right, and I con¬ 
tented myself with the remark that they 
probably would do their level best to us, 
if not for us.. He looked a bit odd, but said nothing. 
F IRST we tackled one of the Fifth Avenue depart¬ 
ment stores. 
“Chinese rugs, yes sir, come this way; about what 
size?” 
Marmalade turned to me. When we two bachelors 
built that bungalow up on the New Jersey bank of 
the Hudson I had done all the fiddling with the 
dimensions of the rooms. 
“What size do we want for the den?” 
I told him to get a good big one; you cannot have 
too much of an antique Chinese rug. 
“Do you think,” he muttered, “that it will ...” 
“You are willing to spend all of that hundred and 
two, aren’t you ? Dash it, the settee cost me a hun¬ 
dred and fifteen.” 
Well, he told the salesman to show him some large 
ones, whereupon we were solemnly conducted across 
the floor to where a beautiful specimen was hanging 
on the wall; an odd size, it seemed, twelve by seven. 
The ground was coral, and the blue border had but¬ 
terflies alternating with blossoms upon it. In the 
centre was a big floral medallion surrounded by 
clouds. Marmalade whispered to me that as it was 
an odd size we might work him down a bit. 
“Now is this a genuine antique Chinese rug?” He 
asked the question rather severely; the salesman 
could tell at a glance he was not to be trifled with. 
“Surely, it is accredited to the period of China 
Ching. Certainly not later than 1830.” 
“That is a very peculiar blue in the border.” 
“Yes, that is robin’s egg blue, very rare.” 
“The rug is such an odd size that I don’t know 
whether we could use it. What is the least you 
would let it go for?” 
“Mr. Simpkins.” 
Our salesman called over an old man, the buyer 
very likely, and the two conferred for a moment. 
“The price is reduced to $1,600.” 
I am bound to say that Marmalade took his medi¬ 
cine like a man; he blew his nose very sonorously, 
and then he stepped forward and felt the texture of 
the rug, doubling up a corner. He appealed to me 
and I said loudly that I didn’t see how a rug of 
those proportions could possibly look well in the blue 
room; I felt this was the least I could do in chivalry 
to a fellow knight. 
Going down in the elevator Marmalade said that 
the rent of the stores in this section was high. 
A T ANOTHER place we were shown a twelve- 
. by-nine Chinese rug for $750, and at another 
a little thing about four by two feet six inches for 
one hundred and seventy-five; whereupon 
we felt it necessary to stay ourselves with 
a thumping good luncheon and strong 
black coffees. I suppose Marmalade must 
have got his idea out of the coffee cup, 
because he certainly could never have 
thought of anything so brainy in an un¬ 
stimulated condition. 
“Why shouldn't I get one of those odd 
Chinese designs in an American-made 
rug? After all, it’s the design I’m after.” 
“A copy, eh?” 
“Yes, a good copy.” 
“You won’t get the soft tones, and it 
won’t be supple.” 
“Never mind, we must get what we can 
afford.” 
Away we went again. The first store 
showed us a rug with an alleged Chinese 
design that was no more Chinese than 
my hat, and the second one said indig¬ 
nantly that they had none but the genu- 
wine and never would have, but the third 
was a regular fellow. 
Marmalade made his wishes very clear 
to the salesman. 
“You know the very strange patterns 
that those real old Chinese rugs have, 
don’t you?” 
“Yes.” 
“Well, I want a rug with one of those 
patterns in it, but I don’t want the gen¬ 
uine thing, it’s too expensive. I’m saving 
my money for a steam yacht; what I want 
is a cheap copy that will talk pidgin to 
all but the rug sharps.” 
The fellow grinned and took us to a 
nine-by-twelve rug with a most satisfac¬ 
torily strange pattern that could never 
have been devised by any but a pig-tailed 
head. 
“Seventy-five,” said he. 
“Seventy-five what?” asked Marma¬ 
lade suspiciously, “thousands or dollars?” 
You can pull the leg of a Scotsman once, 
only. 
“Dollars,” laughed the salesman, “sev¬ 
enty-five dollars.” 
We both looked at it for some minutes, 
and we felt it. The coloring was not as 
soft as the real thing, and it was a rug t<S 
roll, not fold, like the supple originals 
will; but it was indubitably the sort of 
design we wanted. It had a light apricot 
ground with flying bats all over it, sym¬ 
bols of happiness. 
(Continued on page 72) 
