Call the carpet

What is the origin of the phrase “called on the carpet”? Does it have a courtroom reference meaning to confess or tell your side of the story? I’ve always wondered.The expression on the carpet, meaning ‘being rebuked or closely questioned by a person in authority’, is often found in the full phrase to call on the carpet ‘to summon for or administer a rebuke, close questioning, or the like’. This phrase is apparently not of legal origin. It stems from the fact that people in positions of authority tend to have carpets or rugs in their offices, and subservient people tend to work in places with bare floors. Being “on the carpet,” then, would mean literally that you’re seeing the boss or another superior, and contextually the expression refers to seeing the boss for purposes of punishment. The phrase (call) on the carpet in the sense we’re discussing is an Americanism first found in the 1880s. The earliest example, from Scribner’s Magazine, is: “The mortification of being called into the superintendent’s office to explain some dereliction of duty is disguised by referring to the episode as “dancing on the carpet.” The full form call on the carpet is also found in the 1880s. An earlier sense of on the carpet is ‘(of legislative material) under consideration or discussion’, in reference to a council table; this is from the early eighteenth century. A verb to carpet ‘to rebuke (a servant)’ is recorded from the middle of the nineteenth century, in England only, and shows the pervasiveness of the idea. via http://forum.lingvo.ru/actualthread.aspx?tid=74116