There was a bare spot in that
corner of his sumptuously appointed room which offended Waldo's
sensitive taste--a spot needing a touch of yellow brass and a note of
red--and the silk tassel completed the color-scheme. The result was a
combination which delighted his soul; Jack had a passion for having his
soul delighted and an insatiable thirst for the things that did the
delighting, and could no more resist the temptation to possess them when
exposed for sale than a confirmed drunkard could resist a favorite
beverage held under his nose. That all of these precious objects of
bigotry and virtue were beyond his means, and that most of them then
enlivening his two perfectly appointed rooms were still unpaid for,
never worried Jack.
"That fellow's place," he would say of some dealer, "is such a jumble
and so dark that nobody can see what he's got. Ought to be very grateful
to me that I put 'em where people could see 'em. If I can pay for 'em,
all right, and if I can't, let him take 'em back.
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