conversation piece

And Dwayne again carried on a wry talk with the Creator of the Universe, using a robot as an unfeeling conversation piece. A lot of people in Midland City put useless objects from Hawaii or Mexico or someplace like that on their coffee tables or their livingroom end tables or on what-not shelves—and such an object was called a conversation piece.

Hogarth's enlargement of painting's scope was based on the conversation piece, which was to prove one of the most flexible and adaptable of genres. The idea of an informal group was not in itself new, nor the invention of Hogarth alone.