text:  A sort of stand in one corner covered with red baise which supported a plaster bust of our most gracious majesty and gave an air of mock grandeur to the apartment proved upon nearer inspection to be nothing more or less than a barrel of Hall and Tawney's ale an old-fashioned cabinet once gay with lacquered gold and colours which the industrious rubbings of Mrs Nutt and her hand-maid were fast effacing--the depository perhaps of carefully penned love-missives and broidered gloves jewels and perfumes and suchlike shreds and patches of feminine taste or trickery in other times--now served as a resting-place for the heterogeneous treasures of a bachelor's private cupboard