and Jesse J. Holland

WASHINGTON — Some people worry, when they’ve been away from home, that they might return to find something missing.

Sen. Ted Stevens described a different problem. Time and again, he testified Friday, he returned home to find something new and expensive.

A new porch. A balcony. A fully stocked tool chest. A gas grill. A steel staircase. Rope lighting. A generator.

“I literally walked in and found all new furniture,” Stevens testified Friday. “All of our furniture was gone.”

Stevens testified that he didn’t want any of those things and never asked for them. His friend, oil pipeline contractor Bill Allen, just kept giving.

“All of these things kept appearing over the years at your chalet?” prosecutor Brenda Morris asked.

“That’s right,” Stevens said, trying to keep his famously short-fused temper in check.

Stevens is charged with lying on Senate forms about $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts he received from Allen and his company, Veco. Prosecutors say Stevens had a long history of accepting gifts from Allen.

“You were the lion of the Senate, but you didn’t know how to stop this man from putting big-ticket items at your home?” Morris said, teasing the Senate’s longest-serving Republican.

As Morris repeatedly needled him on his relationship with Allen, Veco and the new things at his home, Stevens would shoot back with: “You’re not listening to me, I’ve answered it twice,” “I’m not going to get into a numbers game with you,” “You’re making a lot of assumptions that are unwarranted.”

Stevens, taking the stand as his own star witness Friday, strongly rejected the idea that he had his hand out looking for favors. He said he wouldn’t even let someone pick up the tab at a restaurant and certainly wouldn’t let somebody tack on freebies to his home renovation project.

“I pay my bills wherever I am,” Stevens said. “I don’t let people buy my lunch or buy my dinner. Wherever I am, I pay my bills.”

Morris will continue questioning Stevens — the last witness in the three-week trial — Monday. Attorneys will then make closing arguments, with U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan saying he expects the jury to start deliberating early next week.

Friday, Stevens said he never paid for the furniture Allen left at the house, for instance, because he never asked for it and didn’t want it.

“It’s still at your house?” Morris asked.

“Yes it is,” Stevens said.