Explore "The Beguiling of Peter Griggs" by Francis Hopkinson Smith on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Peter was in his room when I knocked -- up two flights of stairs off Washington Square -- Eighth Street really -- in one of those houses with a past -- of mahogany, open wood fires, old Madeira in silver coasters pushed across hand-polished tables, -- that kind of a past.
None of all this could be seen in its present. The marble steps outside were worn down like the teeth of an old horse, and as yellow; the iron railings were bent and cankered by rust; the front door was in blisters; the halls bare, steps uncarpeted, and the spindling mahogany balusters showed here and there substitutes of pine.