QUOTE : The dining hall itself was splendid; high-vaulted, with enough decorative pennants and banners and hanging crystal to suggest that the master of this manse desired to at least imitate the trappings of a nobility he did not possess through natural descent. Oil-lamps of filigree and gold illuminated the great room while the profusion of precious objects far exceeded what he had encountered in the hallway. It was an ostentatious display of wealth that bordered on the obscene.