As regards myself, I could fill a volume with the interesting events I have witnessed and the conversations I have heard, but the space placed at my disposal is so meagre I will limit my disclosures to the last few years of my existence. Owing to circumstances over which I had no control, after a lengthy period of neglect I was condemned to occupy an undignified position in a broker’s window, where the odour of paraffin was most repulsive to my susceptibilities. I was dozing in the dark one evening when I heard a voice inquiring, “Have you any pewter?” and the reply, “There is a thing in the window, but I think it has some copper about it.” Some money changed hands, I was wrapped in soiled paper and carried to this home, where I was shocked to see a lot of horrid pewter in the hall and elsewhere, and I was introduced to the family in this way, “I don’t know what it is, but it is juicy heavy.”
These people treated me with an attention I had not been accustomed to for many years, and after giving my frame a bath and a polish, refitting my mirror top and screwing my mahogany back, promoted me to the drawing-room, where no pewter was permitted to enter, and here I have since remained. I am convinced I never looked better, and they went into ecstasies over my grape and vine leaves border decoration, and I then had my photograph taken for the first time in my life. Being a great advocate of cleanliness, and as the same care was bestowed on my appearance in my early days as now, I was quite in accord with the lady who remarked, “She thought that in all well-managed houses the carpets ought to be taken up and beaten at least once a year.”
Do you know I love old furniture, and on occasions when there is a general dust up in the drawing-room I am walked past an elm dresser on which I have caught sight of a pair of Sheffield plate snuffers. I have cut them dead, as I notice they have so far demeaned themselves as to form an unholy alliance with a despicable pewter tray.
I had an uneventful period until the leaves were falling in 1918, when a young captain in khaki arrived straight from the firing line in France on leave for a fortnight. The next few days I am proud to say I had to bear the weight of a large wedding cake, and on the eventful day I trembled when the bride began to cut it with the captain assisting her, but my old back, which is as strong as ever, bore up bravely. There was much talking on that occasion, but the words which most impressed me--and which, in order that I may apply them to my patient readers, shall be my last--were