Alfred Henry Lewis 
The President (Illustrated) 

On this far-away November morning, it being ten by every steeple

clock and an hour utterly chaste, there could have existed no

impropriety in one’s having had a look into the rooms of Mr.

Richard Storms, said rooms being second-floor front of the

superfashionable house of Mr. Lorimer Gwynn, Washington, North

West. Richard, wrapped to the chin in a bathrobe, was sitting much

at his ease, having just tumbled from the tub. There was ever a recess

in Richard’s morning programme at this point during which his

breakfast arrived. Pending that repast, he had thrown himself into an

easy-chair before the blaze which crackled in the deep fireplace. The

sudden sharp weather made the fire pleasant enough.

The apartment in which Richard lounged, and the rooms to the rear

belonging with it, were richly appointed. A fortune had been spilled

to produce those effects in velvets and plushes and pictures and

bronzes and crystals and chinas and lamps and Russia leathers and

laces and brocades and silks, and as you walked the thick rugs you

made no more noise than a ghost. It was Richard’s caprice to have

his environment the very lap of splendor, being as given to luxury as

a woman…