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upon the pedestals: Minerva, Mercury, Hercules, Venus, Gladiator, Emperor Augustus, Fisher Boy, Staghound, Mastiff, Greyhound, Fawn, Antelope, Wounded Doe, and Wounded Lion. Most of the forest trees had been left to flourish still, and, at some distance, or by moonlight, the place was in truth beautiful; but the ardent citizen, loving to see his city grow, wanted neither distance nor moonlight. He had not seen Versailles, but, standing before the Fountain of Neptune in Amberson Addition, at bright noon, and quoting the favourite comparison of the local newspapers, he declared Versailles outdone. All this Art showed a profit from the start, for the lots sold well and there was something like a rush to build in the new Addition. Its main thoroughfare, an oblique continuation of National Avenue, was called Amberson Boulevard, and here, at the juncture of the new Boulevard and the Avenue, Major Amberson reserved four acres for himself, and built his new houseā ā€”the Amberson Mansion, of course.

This house was the pride of the town. Faced with stone as far back as the dining-room windows, it was a house of arches and turrets and girdling stone porches: it had the first porte-cochĆØre seen in that town. There was a central ā€œfront hallā€ with a great black walnut stairway, and open to a green glass skylight called the ā€œdome,ā€ three stories above the ground floor. A ballroom occupied most of the third story; and at one end of it was a carved walnut gallery for the musicians. Citizens told strangers that the cost of all this black walnut and woodcarving was sixty thousand dollars. ā€œSixty thousand dollars for the woodwork alone! Yes, sir, and hardwood floors all over the house! Turkish rugs and no carpets at all, except a Brussels carpet in the front parlourā ā€”I hear they call it the ā€˜reception-room.ā€™ Hot and cold water upstairs and down, and stationary washstands in every last bedroom in the place! Their sideboardā€™s built right into the house and goes all the way across one end of the dining room. It isnā€™t walnut, itā€™s solid mahogany! Not veneeringā ā€”solid mahogany! Well, sir, I presume the President of the United States would be tickled to swap the White House for the new Amberson Mansion, if the Majorā€™d give him the chanceā ā€”but by the Almighty Dollar, you bet your sweet life the Major wouldnā€™t!ā€

The visitor to the town was certain to receive further enlightenment, for there was one form of entertainment never omitted: he was always patriotically taken for ā€œa little drive around our city,ā€ even if his host had to hire a hack, and the climax of the display was the Amberson Mansion. ā€œLook at that greenhouse theyā€™ve put up there in the side yard,ā€ the escort would continue. ā€œAnd look at that brick stable! Most folks would think that stable plenty big enough and good enough to live in; itā€™s got running water and four rooms upstairs for two hired men and one of ā€™emā€™s family to live in. They keep one hired man loafinā€™ in the house, and they got a married hired man out in the stable, and his wife does the washing. They got box-stalls for four horses, and they keep a coupay, and some new kinds of fancy rigs you never saw the beat of! ā€˜Cartsā€™ they call two of ā€™emā ā€”way up in the air they areā ā€”too high for me! I guess they got every new kind of fancy rig in there thatā€™s been invented. And harnessā ā€”well, everybody in town can tell when Ambersons are out driving after dark, by the jingle. This town never did see so much style as Ambersons are putting on, these days; and I guess itā€™s going to be expensive, because a lot of other folksā€™ll try to keep up with ā€™em. The Majorā€™s wife and the daughterā€™s been to Europe, and my wife tells me since they got back they make tea there every afternoon about five oā€™clock, and drink it. Seems to me it would go against a personā€™s stomach, just before supper like that, and anyway tea isnā€™t fit for muchā ā€”not unless youā€™re sick or something. My wife says Ambersons donā€™t make lettuce salad the way other people do; they donā€™t chop it up with sugar and vinegar at all. They pour olive oil on it with their vinegar, and they have it separateā ā€”not along with the rest of the meal. And they eat these olives, too: green things they are, something like a hard plum, but a friend of mine told me they tasted a good deal like a bad hickory-nut. My wife says sheā€™s going to buy some; you got to eat nine and then you get to like ā€™em, she says. Well, I wouldnā€™t eat nine bad hickory-nuts to get to like them, and Iā€™m going to let these olives alone. Kind of a womanā€™s dish, anyway, I suspect, but most everybodyā€™ll be makinā€™ a stagger to worm through nine of ā€™em, now Ambersons brought ā€™em to town. Yes, sir, the restā€™ll eat ā€™em, whether they get sick or not! Looks to me like some people in this cityā€™d be willing to go crazy if they thought that would help ā€™em to be as high-toned as Ambersons. Old Aleck Minaferā ā€”heā€™s about the closest old codger we gotā ā€”he come in my office the other day, and he pretty near had a stroke tellinā€™ me about his daughter Fanny. Seems Miss Isabel Ambersonā€™s got some kind of a dogā ā€”they call it a Saint Bernardā ā€”and Fanny was bound to have one, too. Well, old Aleck told her he didnā€™t like dogs except rat-terriers, because a rat-terrier cleans up the mice, but she kept on at him, and finally he said all right she could have one. Then, by George! she says Ambersons bought their dog, and you canā€™t get one without paying for it: they cost from fifty to a hundred dollars up! Old Aleck wanted to know if I ever heard of anybody buyinā€™ a dog before, because, of course,

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