THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
 
 FOR THE 
 ENGLISH READING ROOM 
 
Page 
 
 : ARE YOU RELATED TO MR. M'KINLEY ?' " 
 
Coffee and Repartee 
 
 and 
 
 The Idiot 
 
 By 
 
 John Kendrick J3angs 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 New York and London 
 
 Harper & Brothers 
 
 Publishers 1902 
 
\ 
 
 Copyright, 1893, 1895, 1899 by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
. 
 
 1064- 
 
 TO 
 
 F. S. H. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " ' ARE YOU RELATED TO MR. McKINLEY ?'" . . Frontispiece. 
 
 HEAD-PIECE THE BOARDERS Page 1 
 
 "ALARMED THE COOK" Facing p. 6 
 
 "'READING WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY'" ... " 10 
 " ' WHAT ARE THE FIRST SYMPTOMS OF IN 
 SANITY ?'" ........... " 12 
 
 THE CONSPIRATORS " 18 
 
 " ' I STUCK TO THE PIGS ' " " 22 
 
 " ' WERN'T YOUR EARS LONG ENOUGH ?' " . . " 28 
 " ' THE CORKS POPPED TO SOME PURPOSE LAST 
 
 NIGHT'" " 30 
 
 " ' IK YOU COULD SPARE SO LITTLE AS ONE 
 
 FLAME ' " " 34 
 
 THE SCHOOL-MASTER AS A COOLER " 38 
 
 BOBBO Page 43 
 
 "' READING THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS'" . . Facing p. 44 
 
 WOOING THE MUSE " 56 
 
 " ' HE GAVE UP JOKES '" " 58 
 
 "'A HIND-QUARTER OF LAMB GAMBOLLING ABOCT 
 
 ITS NATIVE HEATH ' " Page 63 
 
 V 
 
vl 
 
 *' ' A LITTLE GARDEN OF MY OWN, WHERE I 
 COULD RAISE AN OCCASIONAL CAN OF TO 
 MATOES '" .......... Facing p. 64 
 
 "'THE GLADSOME CLICK OF THE LAWN-MOWER'" Page 65 
 
 *' ' YOU DON'T MEAN TO SAY THAT TOD WRITE 
 
 FOR THE PAPERS?'" ....... "71 
 
 "'WE WOOED THE SELF-SAME MAID'". . . Facing p. 74 
 
 CURING INSOMNIA ......... " 76 
 
 "HOLDING HIS PLATE UP TO THE LIGHT". . " 80 
 " ' I BELIEVE YOU'D BLOW OUT THE GAS IN 
 
 YOUR BEDROOM'" ........ " 82 
 
 " ' HIS FAIRY STORIES WERE TOLD HIM IN 
 
 WORDS OF TEN SYLLABLES '".... " 86 
 *' ' I THOUGHT MY FATHER A MEAN - SPIRITED 
 
 ASSASSIN '" .......... " 88 
 
 " ' MRS. S. BROUGHT HIM TO THE POINT OF PRO 
 
 POSING '" ........... " 94 
 
 " ' HOORAH !' CRIED THE IDIOT, GRASPING MR. 
 
 PEDAGOG BY THE HAND ' " ..... " 96 
 
 "THE NUISANCE OF HAVING TO PAY". . . " 110 
 
 "SHE COULD NOT POSSIBLY GET ABOARD AGAIN" " 112 
 
 "CERTAINLY, i ASKED FOR ANOTHER CUP". " 122 
 
 "DEMANDS TICKETS FOR TWO" ..... " 124 
 " THEY ARE GIVEN TO REHEARSING AT ALL 
 
 HOURS" ........... " 132 
 
 "'HA! HA! i HAVK HIM NOW!'". ... " 134 
 
 "HAS YOUR FRIEND COMPLETED HIS ARTICLE 
 
 ON OLD JOKES?" ........ " 138 
 
VII 
 
 niKY DEPARTED Facing p. 144 
 
 "YOU FISH ALL DAY, AND HAVE NO LUCK" . " 148 
 
 HE COULD BE HEARD THROWING THINGS ABOUT " 150 
 
 "HE WAS NOT MURDERED" " 156 
 
 " SUPERINTENDENT SMITHERS HAS NOT AB 
 SCONDED " " 158 
 
 THE INSPIRED BOARDER PAID HIS BILL . . " 164 
 
 " i KNOW YOU CAN'T, BECAUSE IT ISN'T THERE" " 168 
 "YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF HEARD IN SAN 
 
 FRANCISCO" " 174 
 
 THE PROPHETOGRAPH " 176 
 
 "l GRASPED IT IN MY TWO HANDS " ... " 184 
 
 " PIANO-PLAYING ISN'T ALWAYS MUSIC " . . " 186 
 
 "THE MOON ITSELF WILL BE USED" ... " 190 
 
 "DECLINES TO BE RIDDEN" " 194 
 
 " THE BIBLIOMANIAC WOULD BE RAISING 
 
 BULBS " " 200 
 
 " DIDN'T KNOW ENOUGH TO CHOOSE HIS OWN 
 
 FACE " " 208 
 
 "JANITORS HAVE TO BE SEEN TO". ... " 210 
 
 " MY ELOQUENCE FLOATED UP THE AIR-SHAFT " " 216 
 
COFFEE AND REPARTEE 
 
THE guests at Mrs. Smithers's high-class 
 boarding-house for gentlemen had assembled 
 as usual for breakfast, and in a few moments 
 Mary, the dainty waitress, entered with the 
 steaming coffee, the mush, and the rolls. 
 
 The School-Master, who, by-the-way, was 
 suspected by Mrs. Smithers of having inten 
 tions, and for that reason occupied the chair 
 nearest the lady's heart, folded up the morn 
 ing paper, and placing it under him so that 
 no one else could get it, observed, quite gen 
 ially for him, " It was very wet yesterday." 
 
 " I didn't find it so," observed a young man 
 seated half-way down the table, who was by 
 common consent called the Idiot, because of 
 i 
 
his " views." " In fact, I was very dry yes 
 terday. Curious thing, I'm always dry on 
 rainy days. I am one of the kind of men 
 who know that it is the part of wisdom to 
 stay in when it rains, or to carry an umbrella 
 when it is not possible to stay at home, or, 
 having no home, like ourselves, to remain 
 cooped up in stalls, or stalled up in coops, as 
 you may prefer." 
 
 "You carried an umbrella, then ?" observed 
 the landlad} r , ignoring the Idiot's shaft at the 
 size of her " elegant and airy apartments " 
 with an ease born of experience. 
 
 " Yes, madame," returned the Idiot, quite 
 unconscious of what was coming. 
 
 " Whose ? " queried the lady, a sarcastic 
 smile playing about her lips. 
 
 " That I cannot say, Mrs. Smithers," re 
 plied the Idiot, serenely, "but it is the one 
 you usually carry." 
 
 " Your insinuation, sir," said the School- 
 Master, coming to the landlady's rescue, "is 
 an unworthy one. The umbrella in ques 
 tion is mine. It has been in my possession 
 for five years." 
 
 " Then," replied the Idiot, unabashed, " it 
 is time you returned it. Don't you think 
 
3 
 
 men's morals are rather lax in this matter of 
 umbrellas, Mr. Whitechoker ?" he added, 
 turning from the School-Master, who began 
 to show signs of irritation. 
 
 " Very," said the Minister, running his fin 
 ger about his neck to make the collar which 
 had been sent home from the laundry by 
 mistake set more easily " very lax. At the 
 last Conference I attended, some person, for 
 getting his high office as a minister in the 
 Church, walked off with my umbrella without 
 so much as a thank you; and it was em 
 barrassing, too, because the rain was coming 
 down in bucketfuls." 
 
 "What did you do?" asked fhe landlady, 
 sympathetically. She liked Mr. Whitechok- 
 er's sermons, and, beyond this, he was a more 
 profitable boarder than any of the others, re 
 maining home to luncheon every day and 
 having to pay extra therefor. 
 
 " There was but one thing left for me to 
 do. I took the bishop's umbrella/' said Mr. 
 Whitechoker, blushing slightly. 
 
 " But you returned it, of course ? " said the 
 Idiot. 
 
 " I intended to, but I left it on the train 
 on my way back home the next day," replied 
 
the Clergyman, visibly embarrassed by the 
 Idiot's unexpected cross-examination. 
 
 " It's the same way with books," put in the 
 Bibliomaniac, an unfortunate being whose 
 love of rare first editions had brought him 
 down from affluence to boarding. " Many a 
 man who wouldn't steal a dollar would run 
 off with a book. I had a friend once who 
 had a rare copy of Through Africa by Day 
 light. It was a beautiful book. Only twenty- 
 five copies printed. The margins of the 
 pages were four inches wide, and the title- 
 page was rubricated; the frontispiece was 
 colored by hand, and the seventeenth page 
 had one of the most amusing typographical 
 errors on it " 
 
 "Was there any reading-matter in the 
 book?" asked the Idiot, blowing softly on a 
 hot potato that was nicely balanced on the 
 end of his fork. 
 
 "Yes, a little; but it didn't amount to 
 much," returned the Bibliomaniac. " It isn't 
 as reading-matter that men like myself care 
 for books, you know. We have a higher no 
 tion than that. It is as a specimen of the 
 book-maker's art that we admire a chaste 
 bit of literature like Through Africa l)y Day- 
 
light. But, as I was saying, my friend had 
 this book, and he'd extra-illustrated it. He 
 had pictures from all parts of the world in 
 it, and the book had grown from a volume of 
 one hundred pages to four volumes of two 
 hundred pages each." 
 
 " And it was stolen by a highly honorable 
 friend, I suppose ?" the Idiot interrupted. 
 
 " Yes, it was stolen and my friend never 
 knew by whom," said the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " What?" cried the Idiot, in mock surprise. 
 " Did you never confess ? " 
 
 It was fortunate for the Idiot that the 
 buckwheat cakes were brought on at this 
 moment. Had there not been some diver 
 sion of that kind, it is certain that the Biblio 
 maniac would have assaulted him. 
 
 " It is very kind of Mrs. Smithers, I think," 
 said the School-Master, "to provide us with 
 such delightful cakes as these free of charge." 
 
 "Yes," said the Idiot, helping himself to 
 six cakes. "Very kind indeed, although I 
 must say they are extremely economical from 
 an architectural point of view which is to 
 say, they are rather fuller of pores than of 
 buckwheat. I wonder why it is," he con 
 tinued, possibly to avert the landlady's re- 
 
taliatory comments "I wonder why it is that 
 porous plasters and buckwheat cakes are so 
 similar in appearance ?" 
 
 "And so widely different in their respective 
 effects on the system/' put in a genial old 
 gentleman who occasionally imbibed, seated 
 next to the Idiot. 
 
 " I fail to see the similarity between a 
 buckwheat cake and a porous plaster," said 
 the School-Master, resolved, if possible, to 
 embarrass the Idiot. 
 
 " You don't eh ?" replied the latter. " Then 
 it is very plain, sir, that you have never eaten 
 a porous plaster." 
 
 To this the School-Master could find no 
 reasonable reply, and he took refuge in si 
 lence. Mr. Whitechoker tried to look severe ; 
 the gentleman who occasionally imbibed 
 smiled all over ; the Bibliomaniac ignored the 
 remark entirely, not having as yet forgiven 
 the Idiot for his gross insinuation regard 
 ing his friend's edition de luxe of Through 
 Africa by Daylight; Mary, the maid, who 
 greatly admired the Idiot, not so much for 
 his idiocy as for the aristocratic manner in 
 which he carried himself, and the truly 
 striking striped shirts he wore, left the room 
 
ALARMKD THE COOK 
 
in a convulsion of laughter that so alarmed 
 the cook below-stairs that the next platterful 
 of cakes were more like tin plates than cakes ; 
 and as for Mrs. Smithers, that worthy woman 
 was speechless with wrath. But she was not 
 paralyzed apparently, for reaching down into 
 her pocket she brought forth a small piece of 
 paper, on which was written in detail the 
 " account due " of the Idiot. 
 
 " I'd like to have this settled, sir," she said, 
 with some asperity. 
 
 " Certainly, my dear madame," replied the 
 Idiot, unabashed " certainly. Can you cash 
 a check for a hundred ?" 
 
 No, Mrs. Smithers could not. 
 
 " Then I shall have to put off paying the 
 account until this evening," said the Idiot. 
 " But tell me," he added, with a glance at the 
 amount of the bill, " are you related to Mr. 
 McKinley, Mrs. Smithers?" 
 
 " I am not," she returned, sharply. " My 
 mother was a Partington." 
 '. "I only asked," said the Idiot, apologeti 
 cally, " because I am very much interested in 
 the subject of heredity, and you may not 
 know it, but you and he have each a marked 
 tendency towards high-tariff bills." 
 
8 
 
 And before Mrs. Smitliers could think of 
 anything to say, the Idiot was on his way 
 down town to help his employer lose money 
 on Wall Street. 
 
II 
 
 e Do you know, I sometimes think " be 
 gan the Idiot, opening and shutting the sil 
 ver cover of his watch several times with a 
 gnap, with the probable, and not altogether 
 laudable, purpose of calling his landlady's 
 attention to the fact of which she was al 
 ready painfully aware that breakfast was 
 fifteen minutes late. 
 
 " Do you, really ?" interrupted the School- 
 Master, looking up from his book with an air 
 of mock surprise. " I am sure I never should 
 have suspected it." 
 
 " Indeed ?" returned the Idiot, undisturbed 
 by this reflection upon his intellect. " I don't 
 really know whether that is due to your gen 
 erally unsuspicious nature, or to your short 
 comings as a mind-reader." 
 
 " There are some minds," put in the land 
 lady at this point, " that are so small that it 
 
10 
 
 would certainly ruin the eyes to attempt to 
 read them." 
 
 " I have seen many such," observed the 
 Idiot, suavely. " Even our friend the Biblio 
 maniac at times has seemed to me to be very 
 absent-minded. And that reminds me, Doc 
 tor," he continued, addressing himself to 
 the medical boarder. " What is the cause of 
 absent-mindedness ? " 
 
 " That," returned the Doctor, ponderously,, 
 " is a very large question. Absent-minded 
 ness, generally speaking, is the result of the 
 projection of the intellect into surroundings 
 other than those which for want of a better 
 term I might call the corporeally immedi 
 ate." 
 
 " So I have understood," said the Idiot, 
 approvingly. " And is absent-mindedness ac 
 quired or inherent ? " 
 
 Here the Idiot appropriated the roll of 
 his neighbor. 
 
 " That depends largely upon the case/'* 
 replied the Doctor, nervously. " Some are 
 born absent-minded, some achieve absent- 
 mindedness, and some have absent-minded 
 ness thrust upon them." 
 
 " As illustrations of which we might take, 
 
" ' READING WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY ' 
 
11 
 
 for instance, I suppose/' said the Idiot, " the 
 born idiot, the borrower, and the man who 
 is knocked silly by the pole of a truck on 
 Broadway." 
 
 "Precisely," replied the Doctor, glad to 
 get out of the discussion so easily. He was 
 a very young doctor, and not always sure of 
 himself. 
 
 " Or," put in the School-Master, " to con 
 dense our illustrations, if the Idiot would 
 kindly go out upon Broadway and encoun 
 ter the truck, we should find the three com 
 bined in him." 
 
 The landlady here laughed quite heartily, 
 and handed the School-Master an extra 
 strong cup of coffee. 
 
 " There is a great deal in what you say," 
 said the Idiot, without a tremor. " There 
 are very few scientific phenomena that can 
 not be demonstrated in one way or another 
 by my poor but essentially honest self. It is 
 the exception always that proves the rule, 
 and in my case you find a consistent converse 
 exemplification of all three branches of ab 
 sent-mindedness." 
 
 "He talks well," said the Bibliomaniac, 
 sotto voce, to the Minister. 
 
12 
 
 " Yes, especially when he gets hold of large 
 words. I really believe he reads/' replied 
 Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 " I know he does/' said the School-Master, 
 who had overheard. " I saw him reading 
 Webster's Dictionary last night. I have no 
 ticed, however, that generally his vocabulary 
 is largely confined to words that come be 
 tween the letters A and F, which shows that 
 as yet he has not dipped very deeply into 
 the book." 
 
 " What are you murmuring about ? " que 
 ried the Idiot, noting the lowered tone of 
 those on the other side of the table. 
 
 "We were conversing ahem! about " 
 began the Minister, with a despairing glance 
 at the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 "Let me say it," interrupted the Biblio 
 maniac. " You aren't used to prevarication, 
 and that is what is demanded at this time. 
 We were talking about ah about er " 
 
 "Tut! tut!" ejaculated the School-Mas 
 ter. "We were only saying we thought the 
 er the that the " 
 
 " What are the first symptoms of insanity, 
 Doctor ? " observed the Idiot, with a look of 
 wonder at the three shuffling boarders op- 
 
13 
 
 posite him, and turning anxiously to the 
 physician. 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't talk shop," retorted 
 the Doctor, angrily. Insanity was one of 
 his weak points. 
 
 "It's a beastly habit," said the School- 
 Master, much relieved at this turn of the con 
 versation. 
 
 "Well, perhaps you are right," returned 
 the Idiot. " People do, as a rule, prefer to 
 talk of things they know something about, 
 and I don't blame you, Doctor, for wanting 
 to keep out of a medical discussion. I only 
 asked my last question because the behavior 
 of the Bibliomaniac and Mr. Whitechoker 
 and the School-Master for some time past 
 has worried me, and I didn't know but what 
 you might work up a nice little practice 
 among us. It might not pay, but you'd find 
 the experience valuable, and I think unique." 
 
 " It is a fine thing to have a doctor right 
 in the house," said Mr. Whitechoker, kindly, 
 fearing that the Doctor's manifest indigna 
 tion might get the better of him. 
 
 " That," returned the Idiot, " is an asser 
 tion, Mr. Whitechoker, that is both true and 
 untrue. There are times when a physician 
 
14 
 
 is an ornament to a boarding-house; times 
 when he is not. For instance, on Wednes 
 day morning if it had not been for the sur 
 gical skill of our friend here, our good land 
 lady could never have managed properly to 
 distribute the late autumn chicken we found 
 upon the menu. Tally one for the affirma 
 tive. On the other hand, I must confess to 
 considerable loss of appetite when I see the 
 Doctor rolling his bread up into little pills, 
 or measuring the vinegar he puts on his salad 
 by means of a glass dropper, and taking the 
 temperature of his coffee with his pocket 
 thermometer. Nor do I like and I should 
 not have mentioned it save by way of illus 
 trating my position in regard to Mr. White- 
 choker's assertion nor do I like the cold, 
 eager glitter in the Doctor's eyes as he 
 watches me consuming, with some difficulty, 
 I admit, the cold pastry we have served up to 
 us on Saturday mornings under the wholly 
 transparent alias of ' Hot Bread/ k< I may 
 have very bad taste, but, in my humble opin 
 ion, the man who talks shop is preferable to 
 the one who suggests it in his eyes. Some 
 more iced potatoes, Mary," he added, calmly. 
 "Madame," said the Doctor, turning an- 
 
15 
 
 grily to the landlady, " this is insufferable. 
 You may make out my bill this morning. I 
 shall have to seek a home elsewhere/' 
 
 " Oh, now, Doctor ! " began the landlady, 
 in her most pleading tone. 
 
 " Jove ! " ejaculated the Idiot. " That's a 
 good idea, Doctor. I think I'll go with you. 
 I'm not altogether satisfied here myself, but 
 to desert so charming a company as we have 
 here had never occurred to me. Together, 
 however, we can go forth, and perhaps find 
 happiness. Shall we put on our hunting 
 togs and chase the fiery, untamed hall-room 
 to the death this morning, or shall we put 
 it off until some pleasanter day ?" 
 
 " Put it off," observed the School-Master, 
 persuasively. " The Idiot was only indulg 
 ing in persiflage, Doctor. That's all. When 
 you have known him longer you will under 
 stand him better. Views are as necessary 
 to him as sunlight to the flowers ; and I truly 
 think that in an asylum he would prove a 
 delightful companion." 
 
 "There, Doctor," said the Idiot; "that's 
 handsome of the School-Master. He couldn't 
 make more of an apology if he tried. I'll 
 forgive him if you will. What say you ?" 
 
16 
 
 And strange to say, the Doctor, in spite 
 of the indignation which still left a red tinge 
 on his cheek, laughed aloud and was recon 
 ciled. 
 
 As for the School-Master, he wanted to 
 he angry, but he did not feel that he could 
 afford his wrath, and for the first time in 
 some months the guests went their several 
 ways at peace with each other and the world. 
 
Ill 
 
 THERE was a conspiracy in hand to em 
 barrass the Idiot. The School-Master and 
 the Bibliomaniac had combined forces to give 
 him a taste of his own medicine. The time 
 had not yet arrived which showed the Idiot 
 at a disadvantage ; and the two boarders, the 
 one proud of his learning, and the other not 
 wholly unconscious of a bookish life, were 
 distinctly tired of the triumphant manner in 
 which the Idiot always left the breakfast- 
 table to their invariable discomfiture. 
 
 It was the School-Master's suggestion to 
 put their tormentor into the pit he had here 
 tofore digged for them. The worthy in 
 structor of youth had of late come to see that 
 while he was still a prime favorite with his 
 landlady, he had, nevertheless, suffered some 
 what in her estimation because of the ap 
 parent ease with which the Idiot had got the 
 better of him on all points. It was neces- 
 
18 
 
 sary, he thought, to rehabilitate himself, and 
 a deep-laid plot, to which the Bibliomaniac 
 readily lent ear, was the result of his reflec 
 tions. They twain were to indulge in a dis 
 cussion of the great story of Robert Elsmere, 
 which both were confident the Idiot had not 
 read, and concerning which they felt assured 
 he could not have an intelligent opinion if he 
 had read it. 
 
 So it happened upon this bright Sunday 
 morning that as the boarders sat them down 
 to partake of the usual " restful breakfast/' 
 as the Idiot termed it, the Bibliomaniac ob 
 served : 
 
 " I have just finished reading Robert Els- 
 mere." 
 
 " Have you, indeed ?" returned the School- 
 Master, with apparent interest. "I trust 
 you profited by it ? " 
 
 " On the contrary," observed the Biblio 
 maniac. " My views are much unsettled by 
 it." 
 
 " I prefer the breast of the chicken, Mrs. 
 Smithers," observed the Idiot, sending his 
 plate back to the presiding genius of the 
 table. " The neck of a chicken is graceful, 
 but not too full of sustenance/' 
 
THE CONSPIRATORS 
 
19 
 
 " He fights shy," whispered the Biblio 
 maniac, gleefully. 
 
 "Never mind," returned the School-Mas 
 ter, confidently ; " we'll land him yet." Then 
 he added, aloud : " Unsettled by it ? I fail 
 to see how any man with beliefs that are at 
 all the result of mature convictions can be 
 unsettled by the story of Elsmere. For my 
 part I believe, and I have always said " 
 
 " I never could understand why the neck 
 of a chicken should be allowed on a respec 
 table table anyhow," continued the Idiot, ig 
 noring the controversy in which his neigh 
 bors were engaged, "unless for the purpose 
 of showing that the deceased fowl met with 
 an accidental rather than a natural death." 
 
 " In what way does the neck demonstrate 
 that point?" queried the Bibliomaniac, for 
 getting the conspiracy for a moment. 
 
 " By its twist or by its length, of course," 
 returned the Idiot. " A chicken that dies a 
 natural death does not have its neck wrung ; 
 nor when the head is removed by the use of 
 a hatchet, is it likely that it will be cut off so 
 close behind the ears that those who eat the 
 chicken are confronted with four inches of 
 neck." 
 
20 
 
 "Very entertaining indeed/' interposed 
 the School-Master ; " but we are wandering 
 from the point the Bibliomaniac and I were 
 discussing. Is or is not the story of Robert 
 Elsmere unsettling to one's beliefs? Per 
 haps you can help us to decide that ques 
 tion." 
 
 " Perhaps I can/' returned the Idiot ; 
 "and perhaps not. It did not unsettle my 
 beliefs." 
 
 " But don't you think," observed the Bib 
 liomaniac, "that to certain minds the book 
 is more or less unsettling ? " 
 
 "To that I can confidently say no. The 
 certain mind knows no uncertainty," replied 
 the Idiot, calmly. 
 
 "Very pretty indeed," said the School- 
 Master, coldly. " But what was your opin 
 ion of Mrs. Ward's handling of the subject ? 
 Do you think she was sufficiently realistic? 
 And if so, and Elsmere weakened under the 
 stress of circumstances, do you think or 
 don't you think the production of such a 
 book harmful, because being real it must 
 of necessity therefore be unsettling to some 
 minds?" 
 
 "I prefer not to express an opinion on 
 
21 
 
 that subject/' returned the Idiot, " because I 
 never read Robert Els " 
 
 " Never read it ? " ejaculated the School- 
 Master, a look of triumph in his eyes. 
 
 "Why, everybody has read Elsmere that 
 pretends to have read anything/' asserted the 
 Bibliomaniac. 
 
 ! " Of course/' put in the landlady, with a 
 scornful laugh. 
 
 " Well, I didn't," slid the Icliot, noncha 
 lantly. "The same ground was gone over 
 two years before in Burrows's great story, 7s 
 It, or Is It Not ? and anybody who ever read 
 Clink's books on the Non-Existent as Op 
 posed -to What Is, knows where Burrows got 
 Ms points. Burrows's story was a perfect 
 marvel. I don't know how many editions it 
 went through in England, and when it was 
 translated into French by Madame Tournay, 
 it simply set France wild." 
 
 " Great Scott !" whispered the Biblioma 
 niac, desperately, "I'm afraid we've been 
 barking up the wrong tree." 
 
 " You've read Clink, I suppose ? " asked 
 the Idiot, turning to the School-Master. 
 
 "Y es," returned the School-Master, 
 Hushing deeply. 
 
22 
 
 The Idiot looked surprised, and tried to con 
 ceal a smile by sipping his coffee from a spoon. 
 
 " And Burrows ? " 
 
 "No," returned the School-Master, hum 
 bly. " I never read Burrows." 
 
 "Well, you ought to. It's a great book, 
 and it's the one Robert Els-mere is taken 
 from same ideas all through, I'm told 
 that's why I didn't read Elsmere. Waste of 
 time, you know. But you noticed yourself, 
 I suppose, that Clink's ground is the same 
 as that covered in Elsmere ?" 
 
 "No; I only dipped lightly into Clink/' 
 returned the School-Master, with some em 
 barrassment. 
 
 " But you couldn't help noticing a similar 
 ity of ideas ? " insisted the Idiot, calmly. 
 
 The School-Master looked beseechingly at 
 the Bibliomaniac, who would have been glad 
 to fly to his co-conspirator's assistance had 
 he known how, but never having heard of 
 Clink, or Burrows either, for that matter, he 
 made up his mind that it was best for his 
 reputation for him to stay out of the con 
 troversy. 
 
 "Very slight similarity, however," said 
 the School-Master, in despair. 
 
" ' I STUCK TO THE PIGS ' " 
 
23 
 
 " "Where can I find Clink's books ? " put in 
 Mr. Whitechoker, very much interested. 
 
 The Idiot conveniently had his mouth full 
 of chicken at the moment, and it was to the 
 School-Master, who had also read him, that 
 they all the landlady included looked for 
 an answer. 
 
 " Oh, I think," returned that worthy, hes 
 itatingly " I think you'll find Clink in any 
 of the public libraries." 
 
 " What is his full name ? " persisted Mr. 
 Whitechoker, taking out a memorandum- 
 book. 
 
 " Horace J. Clink," said the Idiot. 
 
 " Yes ; that's it Horace J. Clink," echoed 
 the School-Master. " Very virile writer and 
 a clear thinker," he added, with some nerv 
 ousness. 
 
 "What, if any, of his books would you 
 specially recommend ? " asked the Minister 
 again. 
 
 The Idiot had by this time risen from the 
 table, and was leaving the room with the 
 genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed. 
 
 The School-Master's reply was not audi 
 ble. 
 
 " I say," said the genial gentleman to the 
 3 
 
24 
 
 Idiot as they passed out into the hall, " they 
 didn't get much the best of you in that mat 
 ter. But, tell me, who was Clink, any 
 how?" 
 
 " Never heard of him before," returned 
 the Idiot. 
 
 " And Burrows ? " 
 
 " Same as Clink." 
 
 " Know anything about Elsmere ? " chuck 
 led the genial gentleman. 
 
 " Nothing except that it and ' Pigs in 
 Clover' came out at the same time, and I 
 stuck to the Pigs." 
 
 And the genial gentleman who occasion 
 ally imbibed was so pleased at the plight of 
 the School-Master and of the Bibliomaniac 
 that he invited the Idiot up to his room, 
 where the private stock was kept for just 
 such occasions, and they put in a very pleas 
 ant morning together. 
 
IV 
 
 THE guests were assembled as usual. The 
 oatmeal course had been eaten in silence. In 
 the Idiot's eye there was a cold glitter of ex 
 pectancy a glitter that boded ill for the 
 man who should challenge him to contro 
 versial combat and there seemed also to be, 
 judging from sundry winks passed over the 
 table and kicks passed under it, an under 
 standing to which he and the genial gentle 
 man who occasionally imbibed were parties. 
 
 As the School-Master sampled his coffee 
 the genial gentleman who occasionally im 
 bibed broke the silence. 
 
 "I missed you at the concert last night, 
 Mr. Idiot," said he. 
 
 " Yes/' said the Idiot, with a caressing 
 movement of the hand over his upper lip ; " I 
 was very sorry, but I couldn't get around 
 last night. I had an engagement with a 
 number of friends at the athletic club. I 
 
26 
 
 meant to have dropped you a line in the af 
 ternoon telling you about it, but I forgot it 
 until it was too late. Was the concert a suc 
 cess ? " 
 
 " Very successful indeed. The best one, 
 in fact, we have had this season, which makes 
 me regret all the more deeply your absence," 
 returned the genial gentleman, with a sug 
 gestion of a smile playing about his lips. 
 "Indeed," he added, "it was the finest one 
 I've ever seen." 
 
 " The finest one you've what ? " queried 
 the School-Master, startled at the verb. 
 
 " The finest one I've ever seen," replied the 
 genial gentleman. " There were only ten 
 performers, and really, in all my experience 
 as an attendant at concerts, I never saw such 
 a magnificent rendering of Beethoven as we 
 had last night. I wish you could have been 
 there. It was a sight for the gods." 
 
 " I don't believe," said the Idiot, with a 
 slight cough that may have been intended to 
 conceal a laugh and that may also have 
 been the result of too many cigarettes " I 
 don't believe it could have been any more 
 interesting than a game of pool I heard at 
 the club." 
 
27 
 
 " It appears to me/'' said the Bibliomaniac 
 to the School-Master, "that the popping 
 sounds we heard late last night in the Id 
 iot's room may have some connection with 
 the present mode of speech these two gen 
 tlemen affect." 
 
 "Let's hear them out," returned the 
 School-Master, "and then we'll take them 
 into camp, as the Idiot would say." 
 
 " I don't know about that," replied the 
 genial gentleman. " I've seen a great many 
 concerts, and I've heard a great many good 
 games of pool, but the concert last night 
 was simply a ravishing spectacle. We had 
 a Cuban pianist there who played the or 
 chestration of the first act of Parisfal with 
 surprising agility. As far as I could see, 
 he didn't miss a note, though it was a little 
 annoying to observe how inadequately he 
 used the pedals." 
 
 " Too forcibly, or how ? " queried the 
 Idiot. 
 
 " Not forcibly enough," returned the Im 
 biber. " He tried to work them both with 
 one foot. It was the only thing to mar an 
 otherwise marvellous performance. The 
 idea of a man trying to display Wagner 
 
28 
 
 with two hands and one foot is irritating 
 to a musician with a trained eye." 
 
 " I wish the Doctor would come down," 
 said Mrs. Smithers, anxiously. 
 
 "Yes," put in the School-Master; "there 
 seems to be madness in our midst." 
 
 " Well, what can you expect of a Cuban, 
 anyhow ? " queried the Idiot. " The Cuban, 
 like the Spaniard or the Italian or the Afri 
 can, hasn't the vigor which is necessary for 
 the proper comprehension and rendering of 
 Wagner's music. He is by nature slow and 
 indolent. If it' were easier for a Spaniard 
 to hop than to walk, he'd hop, and rest his 
 other leg. I've known Italians whose diet 
 was entirely confined to liquids, because they 
 were too tired to masticate solids. It is the 
 case with which it can be absorbed that 
 makes macaroni the favorite dish of the Ital 
 ians, and the fondness of all Latin races for 
 wines is entirely due, I think, to the fact 
 that wine can be swallowed without chewing. 
 This indolence affects also their language. 
 The Italian and the Spaniard speak the lan 
 guage that comes easy that is soft and 
 dreamy; while the Germans and Eussians, 
 stronger, more energetic, indulge in a speech 
 
"WEREN'T YOUR EARS LONG K.XOUGH?'" 
 
29 
 
 that even to us, who are people of an aver 
 age amount of energy, is sometimes appall 
 ing in the severity of the strain it puts upon 
 the tongue. So, while I do not wonder that 
 your Cuban pianist showed woful defects in 
 his use of the pedals, I do wonder that, even 
 with his surprising agilit3 r , he had sufficient 
 energy to manipulate the keys to the satis 
 faction of so competent a witness as your 
 self/' 
 
 " It was too bad ; but we made up for it 
 later,'' asserted the other. " There was a 
 young girl there who gave us some of Men 
 delssohn's Songs without Words. Her ex 
 pression was simply perfect. I wouldn't 
 have missed it for all the world; and now 
 that I think of it, in a few days I can let you 
 see for yourself how splendid it was. We 
 persuaded her to encore the songs in the 
 dark, and we got a flash-light photograph 
 of two of them." 
 
 " Oh ! then it was not on the piano-forte 
 she gave them ?" said the Idiot. 
 
 " Oh no ; all labial," returned the genial 
 gentleman. 
 
 Here Mr. Whitechoker began to look con 
 cerned, and whispered something to the 
 
30 
 
 School-Master, who replied that there were 
 enough others present to cope with the two 
 parties to the conversation in case of a vio 
 lent outbreak. 
 
 " I'd he very glad to see the photographs/' 
 replied the Idiot. " Can't I secure copies of 
 them for my collection? You know I have 
 the complete rendering of ' Home, Sweet 
 Home ' in kodak views, as sung by Patti. 
 
 O */ 
 
 They are simply wonderful, and they prove 
 what has repeatedly been said by critics, that, 
 in the matter of expression, the superior of 
 Patti has never been seen." 
 
 " I'll try to get them for you, though I 
 doubt it can be done. The artist is a very 
 shy young girl, and does not care to have 
 her efforts given too great a publicity until 
 she is ready to go into music a little more 
 deeply. She is going to read the ' Moon 
 light Sonata ' to us at our next concert. 
 You'd better come. I'm told her gestures 
 bring out the composer's meaning in a man 
 ner never as yet equalled." 
 
 " I'll be there ; thank you," returned the 
 Idiot. " And the next time those fellows 
 at the club are down for a pool tournament 
 I want you to come up and hear them play. 
 
31 
 
 It was extraordinary last night to hear the 
 balls dropping one by one click, click, 
 click as regularly as a metronome, into the 
 pockets. One of the finest shots, I am sorry 
 to say, I missed/' 
 
 " How did it happen ? " asked the Biblio 
 maniac. " Weren't your ears long enough ? " 
 
 " It was a kiss shot, and I couldn't hear 
 it," returned the Idiot. 
 
 "I think you men are crazy," said the 
 School-Master, unable to contain himself any 
 longer. 
 
 " So ? " observed the Idiot, calmly. "And 
 how do we show our insanity?" 
 
 " Seeing concerts and hearing games of 
 pool." 
 
 " I take exception to your ruling," re 
 turned the Imbiber. "As my friend the Id 
 iot has frequently remarked, you have the 
 peculiarity of a great many men in your pro 
 fession, who think because they never hap 
 pened to see or do or hear things as other 
 people do, they may not be seen, done, or 
 heard at all. I saw the concert I attended 
 last night. Our musical club has rooms next 
 to a hospital, and we have to give silent con 
 certs for fear of disturbing the patients ; but 
 
32 
 
 we are all musicians of sufficient education 
 to understand by a glance of the eye what 
 you would fail to comprehend with fourteen 
 ears and a microphone." 
 
 " Very well said," put in the Idiot, with a 
 scornful glance at the School-Master. " And 
 I literally heard the pool tournament. I 
 was dining in a room off the billiard-hall, 
 and every shot that was made, with the ex 
 ception of the one I spoke of, was distinctly 
 audible. You gentlemen, who think you 
 know it all, wouldn't be able to supply a 
 bureau of information at the rate of five 
 minutes a day for an hour on a holiday. 
 Let's go up-stairs," he added, turning to the 
 Imbiber, " where we may discuss our last 
 night's entertainment apart from this at 
 mosphere of rarefied learning. It makes me 
 faint." 
 
 And the Imbiber, who was with difficulty 
 keeping his lips in proper form, was glad 
 enough to accept the invitation. " The corks 
 popped to some purpose last night," he said, 
 later on. 
 
 "Yes," said the Idiot; "for a conspiracy 
 there's nothing so helpful as popping corks." 
 
" WHEN you get through with the fire, Mr. 
 Pedagog," observed the Idiot, one winter's 
 morning, observing that the ample propor 
 tions of the School-Master served as a screen 
 to shut off the heat from himself and the 
 genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed, 
 " I wish you would let us have a little of it. 
 Indeed, if you could conveniently spare so 
 little as one flame for my friend here and 
 myself, we'd be much obliged." 
 
 " It won't hurt you to cool off a little, sir," 
 returned the School-Master sarcastically and 
 without moving. 
 
 " No, I am not so much afraid of the in 
 jury that may be mine as I am concerned 
 for you. If that fire should melt our only 
 refrigerating material, I do not know what 
 our good landlady would do. Is it true, as 
 the Bibliomaniac asserts, that Mrs. Smithers 
 
34 
 
 leaves all her milk and butter in your room, 
 overnight, relying upon your coolness to 
 keep them fresh ?" 
 
 " I never made any such assertion/' said 
 the Bibliomaniac, warmly. 
 
 " I am not used to having my word dis 
 puted/' returned the Idiot, with a wink at 
 the genial old gentleman. 
 
 "But I never said it, and I defy you to 
 prove that I said it/' returned the Biblio 
 maniac, hotly. 
 
 " You forget, sir," said the Idiot, coolly,, 
 "that you are the one who disputes my as 
 sertion. That casts the burden of proof on 
 your shoulders. Of course if j'ou can prove 
 that you never said anything of the sort, I 
 withdraw; but if you cannot adduce proofs, 
 you, having doubted my word, and publicly 
 at that, need not feel hurt if I decline to ac 
 cept all that you say as gospel." 
 
 "You show ridiculous heat," said the 
 School-Master. 
 
 " Thank you," returned the Idiot, grace 
 fully. " And that brings us back to the 
 original proposition that you would do well 
 to show a little yourself." 
 
 " Good-morning, gentlemen," said Mrs. 
 
35 
 
 Smithers, entering the room at this moment. 
 " It's a bright, fresh morning." 
 
 " Like yourself," said the School-Master, 
 gallantly. 
 
 " Yes," added the Idiot, with a glance at 
 the clock, which registered 8.45 forty-five 
 minutes after the breakfast hour " very like 
 Mrs. Smithers rather advanced." 
 
 To this the landlady paid no attention; 
 but the School-Master could not refrain 
 from saying: 
 
 "Advanced, and therefore not backward, 
 like some persons I might name." 
 
 " Very clever," retorted the Idiot, " and 
 really worth rewarding. Mrs. Smithers, you 
 ought to give Mr. Pedagog a receipt in full 
 for the past six months." 
 
 "Mr. Pedagog," returned the landlady, 
 severely, "is one of the gentlemen who al 
 ways have their receipts for the past six 
 months." 
 
 " Which betrays a very saving disposition," 
 accorded the Idiot. " I wish I had all I'd 
 received for six months. I'd be a rich man." 
 
 " Would you, now ? " queried the Biblio 
 maniac. " That is interesting enough. How 
 men's ideas differ on the subject of wealth ! 
 
36 
 
 Here is the Idiot would consider himself rich 
 with $150 in his pocket " 
 
 " Do you think he gets as much as that ? " 
 put in the School-Master, viciously. " Five 
 dollars a week is rather high pay for one of 
 his" 
 
 " Very high indeed," agreed the Idiot. " I 
 wish I got that much. I might he able 
 to hire a two-legged encyclopaedia to tell me 
 everything, and have over $4.75 a week left 
 to spend on opera, dress, and the poor but 
 honest board Mrs. Smithers provides, if my 
 salary was up to the $5 mark ; but the trouble 
 is men do not make the fabulous fortunes 
 nowadays with the ease with which you, Mr. 
 Pedagog, made yours. There are, no doubt, 
 more and greater opportunities to-day than 
 there were in the olden time, but there are 
 also more men trying to take advantage of 
 them. Labor in the business world is badly 
 watered. The colleges are turning out more 
 men in a week nowadays than the whole 
 country turned out in a year forty years ago, 
 and the quality is so poor that there has been 
 a general reduction of wages all along the 
 line. Where does the struggler for existence 
 come in when he has to compete with the 
 
37 
 
 college-bred youth who, for fear of not get 
 ting employment anywhere, is willing to 
 work for nothing? People are not willing 
 to pay for what they can get for nothing." 
 
 " I am glad to hear from your lips so 
 complete an admission," said the School- 
 Master, "that education is downing igno 
 rance." 
 
 " I am glad to know of your gladness," 
 returned the Idiot. " I didn't quite say 
 that education was downing ignorance. I 
 plead guilty to the charge of holding the be 
 lief that unskilled omniscience interferes 
 very materially with skilled sciolism in 
 skilled sciolism's efforts to make a living." 
 
 " Then you admit your own superficial 
 ity ? " asked the School-Master, somewhat 
 surprised by the Idiot's command of sylla 
 bles. 
 
 " I admit that I do not know it all," re 
 turned the Idiot. " I prefer to go through 
 life feeling that there is yet something for 
 me to learn. It seems to me far better to 
 admit this voluntarily than to have it forced 
 home upon me by circumstances, as hap 
 pened in the case of a college graduate I 
 know, who speculated on Wall Street, and 
 
38 
 
 lost the hundred dollars that were subse 
 quently put to a good use by the uneducated 
 me/' " 
 
 " From which you deduce that ignorance 
 is better than education?" queried the 
 School-Master, scornfully. 
 
 " For an omniscient/' returned the Idiot, 
 "you are singularly near-sighted. I have 
 made no such deduction. I arrive at the 
 conclusion, however, that in the chase for 
 the gilded shekel the education of experience 
 is better than the coddling of Alma Mater. 
 In the satisfaction the personal satisfac 
 tion one derives from a liberal education, I 
 admit that the sons of Alma Mater are the 
 better off. I never could hope to be so self- 
 satisfied, for instance, as you are." 
 
 " No," observed the School-Master ; " you 
 cannot raise grapes on a thistle farm. Any 
 unbiassed observer looking around this table," 
 he added, "and noting Mr. Whitechoker, a 
 graduate of Yale ; the Bibliomaniac, a son of 
 dear old Harvard ; the Doctor, an honor man 
 of Williams; our legal friend here, a gradu 
 ate of Columbia to say nothing of myself, 
 who was graduated with honors at Amherst 
 any unbiassed observer seeing these, I say, 
 
THE SCIIOOLMASTKR AS A COOLER 
 
39 
 
 and then seeing you, wouldn't take very long 
 to make up his mind as to whether a man 
 is better off or not for having had a colle 
 giate training." 
 
 " There I must again dispute your asser 
 tion/' returned the Idiot. " The unbiassed 
 person of whom you speak would say, ' Here 
 is this gray-haired Amherst man, this book- 
 loving Cambridge boy of fifty-seven years of 
 age, the reverend graduate of Yale, class of 
 '55, and the other two learned gentlemen of 
 forty-nine summers each, and this poor ig 
 noramus of an Idiot, whose only virtue is his 
 modesty, all in the same box.' And then he 
 would ask himself, ' In what way have these 
 lusty sons of Amherst, Yale, Harvard, and 
 so forth, the better of the modest and un 
 assuming Idiot ? ' ' 
 
 " The same box ?" said the Bibliomaniac. 
 " What do you mean by that ? " 
 
 "Just what I say," returned the Idiot. 
 " The same box. All boarding, all eschew 
 ing luxuries of necessity, all paying their 
 bills with difficulty, all sparsely clothed; in 
 reality, all keeping Lent the year through. 
 ' Verily,' he would say, ' the Idiot has the 
 best of it, for he is young.' ' ; 
 
40 
 
 And leaving them chewing the cud of re 
 flection, the Idiot departed. 
 
 " I thought they were going to land you 
 that time/' said the genial gentleman who 
 occasionally imbibed, later; "but when I 
 heard you use the word ' sciolism/ I knew 
 you were all right. Where did you get it?" 
 
 " My chief got it off on me at the office the 
 other day. I happened in a mad moment to 
 try to unload some of my original observa 
 tions on him apropos of my getting to the 
 office two hours late, in which it was my en 
 deavor to prove to him that the truly safe 
 and conservative man was always slow, and 
 so apt to turn up late on occasions. He 
 hopped about the office for a minute or two, 
 and then he informed me that I was an 18- 
 karat sciolist. I didn't know what he meant, 
 and so I looked it up." 
 
 " And what did he mean ? " 
 
 " He meant that I took the cake for super 
 ficiality, and I guess he was right," replied 
 the Idiot, with a smile that was not alto 
 gether mirthful. 
 
VI 
 
 " GOOD-MORNING ! " said the Idiot, cheer 
 fully, as he entered the dining-room. 
 
 To this remark no one but the landlady 
 vouchsafed a reply. " I don't think it is/* 
 she said, shortly. " It's raining too hard to 
 be a very good morning." 
 
 " That reminds me," observed the Idiot, 
 taking his seat and helping himself copious 
 ly to the hominy. " A friend of mine on 
 one of the newspapers is preparing an ar 
 ticle on the 'Antiquity of Modern Humor/ 
 With your kind permission, Mrs. Smithers, 
 I'll take down your remark and hand it over 
 to Mr. Scribuler as a specimen of the mod 
 ern antique joke. You may not be aware 
 of the fact, but that jest is to be found in 
 the rare first edition of the Tales of Bobbo, 
 an Italian humorist, who stole everything he 
 wrote from the Greeks." 
 
42 
 
 " So ? " queried the Bibliomaniac. " I 
 never heard of Bobbo, though I had, before 
 the auction sale of my library, a choice copy 
 of the Tales of Poggio, bound in full crushed 
 Levant morocco, with gilt edges; and one 
 or two other Italian Joe Millers in tree calf. 
 I cannot at this moment recall their names/' 
 
 " At what period did Bobbo live ?" in 
 quired the School-Master. 
 
 " I don't exactly remember," returned the 
 Idiot, assisting the last potato on the table 
 over to his plate. " I don't know exactly. 
 It was subsequent to B.C., I think, although 
 I may be wrong. If it was not, you may 
 rest assured it was prior to B.C." 
 
 " Do you happen to know," queried the 
 Bibliomaniac, " the exact date of this rare 
 first edition of which you speak ?" 
 
 "No; no one knows that," returned the 
 Idiot. " And for a very good reason. It 
 was printed before dates were invented." 
 
 The silence which followed this bit of in 
 formation from the Idiot was almost insult 
 ing in its intensity. It was a silence that 
 spoke, and what it said was that the Idiot's 
 idiocy was colossal, and he, accepting the 
 stillness as a tribute, smiled sweetly. 
 
43 
 
 " What do you think, Mr. White- 
 choker/' he said, when he thought 
 the time was ripe for 
 renewing the conver 
 sation "what do you 
 think of the doctrine 
 that every day will be 
 Sunday by-and-by ? " 
 
 " I have only to say, 
 sir," returned the 
 Dominie, pouring a 
 little hot water into 
 his milk, which was a 
 bit too strong for him, 
 " that I am a firm be 
 liever in the occur 
 rence of a period 
 when Sunday will be 
 to all practical pur 
 poses perpetual." 
 
 " That is my belief, 
 t o o," observed the 
 School-Master. "But 
 
 it will be ruinous to our good landlady to 
 provide us with one of her exceptionally fine 
 Sunday breakfasts every morning." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Pedagog," returned 
 
44 
 
 Mrs. Smithers, with a smile. " Can't I give 
 you another cup of coffee ?" 
 
 "You may," returned the School-Master, 
 pained at the lady's grammar, tut too cour 
 teous to call attention to it save by the em 
 phasis with which he spoke the word " may." 
 
 " That's one view to take of it," said the 
 Idiot. " But in case we got a Sunday break 
 fast every day in the week, we, on the other 
 hand, would get approximately what we pay 
 for. You may fill my cup too, Mrs. Smith- 
 ers." 
 
 " The coffee is all gone," returned the land 
 lady, with a snap. 
 
 " Then, Mary," said the Idiot, gracefully, 
 turning to the maid, "you may give me a 
 glass of ice-water. It is quite as warm, after 
 all, as the coffee, and not quite so weak. 
 A perpetual Sunday, though, would have its 
 drawbacks," he added, unconscious of the 
 venomous glances of the landlady. " You, 
 Mr. Whitechoker, for instance, would be 
 preaching all the time, and in consequence 
 would soon break down. Then the effect 
 upon our eyes from habitually reading the 
 Sunday newspapers day after day would be 
 extremely bad; nor must we forget that an 
 
'READING THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPERS 
 
45 
 
 eternity of Sundays means the elimination 
 ' from our midst/ as the novelists say, of 
 baseball., of circuses, of horse-racing, and 
 other necessities of life, unless we are pre 
 pared to cast over the Puritanical view of 
 Sunday which now prevails. It would sub 
 stitute Dr. Watts for e Annie Kooney.' We 
 should lose ' Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay ' entirely, 
 which is a point in its favor." 
 
 " I don't know about that," said the genial 
 old gentleman. " I rather like that song." 
 
 "Did you ever hear me sing it?" asked 
 the Idiot. 
 
 " Never mind," returned the genial old 
 gentleman, hastily. " Perhaps you are right, 
 after all." 
 
 The Idiot smiled, and resumed : " Our 
 shops would be perpetually closed, and an 
 enormous loss to the shopkeepers would be 
 sure to follow. Mr. Pedagog's theory that 
 we should have Sunday breakfasts every day 
 is not tenable, for the reason that with a 
 perpetual day of rest agriculture would die 
 out, food products would be killed off by un- 
 pulled weeds; in fact, we should go back to 
 that really unfortunate period when women 
 were without dress-makers, and man's chief 
 
46 
 
 object in life was to christen animals as he 
 met them, and to abstain from apples, wis 
 dom, and full dress." 
 
 " The Idiot is right," said the Biblioma 
 niac. " It would not be a very good thing 
 for the world if every day were Sunday. 
 Wash-day is a necessity of life. I am will 
 ing to admit this, in the face of the fact that 
 wash-day meals are invariably atrocious. 
 Contracts would be void, as a rule, because 
 Sunday is a dies non." 
 
 " A what ? " asked the Idiot. 
 
 " A non-existent day in a business sense," 
 put in the School-Master. 
 
 " Of course," said the landlady, scornful 
 ly. " Any person who knows anything knows 
 that." 
 
 " Then, madame," returned the Idiot, ris 
 ing from his chair, and putting a handful of 
 sweet crackers in his pocket "then I must 
 put in a claim for $104 from you, having 
 been charged at the rate of one dollar a day 
 for 104 dies nons in the two years I have 
 been with you." 
 
 " Indeed ! " returned the lady, sharply. 
 " Very well. And I shall put in a counter 
 claim for the lunches you carry away from 
 
47 
 
 the breakfast table every morning in your 
 pockets." 
 
 " In that event we'll call it off, madame," 
 returned the Idiot, as with a courtly bow 
 and a pleasant smile he left the room. 
 
 " Well, I call him < off/ " was all the land 
 lady could say, as the other guests took 
 their departure. 
 
 And of course the School-Master agreed 
 with her. 
 
VII 
 
 " OUR streets appear to be as far from 
 perfect as ever," said the Bibliomaniac with 
 a sigh, as he looked out through the window 
 at the great pools of water that gathered in 
 the basins made by the sinking of the Bel 
 gian blocks. "We'd better go back to the 
 cowpaths of our fathers." 
 
 " There is a great deal in what you say," 
 observed the School-Master. "The cow- 
 path has all the solidity of mother earth, 
 and none of the distracting noises we get 
 from the pavements that obtain to-day. It 
 is porous and absorbs the moisture. The 
 ; Belgian pavement is leaky, and lets it run 
 into our cellars. We might do far worse 
 than to go back " 
 
 ec Excuse me for having an opinion," said 
 the Idiot, " but the man of enterprise can't 
 afford to indulge in the luxury of the som- 
 
49 
 
 nolent cowpath. It is too quiet. It con 
 duces to sleep, which is a luxury business 
 men cannot afford to indulge in too freely. 
 Man must be up and doing. The prosperity 
 of a great city is to my mind directly due 
 to its noise and clatter, which effectually 
 put a stop to napping, and keep men at all 
 times wide awake/' 
 
 " This is a Welsh-rabbit idea, I fancy," 
 said the School-Master, quietly. He had 
 overheard the Idiot's confidences, as revealed 
 to the genial Imbiber, regarding the sources 
 of some of his ideas. 
 
 " Not at all," returned the Idiot. " These 
 ideas are beef not Welsh-rabbit. They are 
 the result of much thought. If you will 
 put your mind on the subject, you will see 
 for yourself that there is more in my theory 
 than there is in yours. The prosperity of a 
 locality is the greater as the noise in its vi 
 cinity increases. It is in the quiet neigh 
 borhood that man stagnates. Where do we 
 find great business houses? Where do we 
 find great fortunes made? Where do we 
 find the busy bees who make the honey that 
 enables posterity to get into Society and do 
 nothing? Do we pick up our millions on 
 
50 
 
 the cowpath? I guess not. Do we erect 
 our most princely business houses along the 
 roads laid out by our bovine sister ? I think 
 not. Does the man who goes from the tow- 
 path to the White House take the short cut ? 
 I fancy not. He goes over the block pave 
 ment. He seeks the home of the noisy, clat 
 tering street before he lands in the shoes of 
 Washington. The man who sticks to the 
 cowpath may be able to drink milk, but he 
 never wears diamonds." 
 
 " All that you say is very true, but it is 
 not based on any fundamental principle. It 
 is so because it happens to be so," returned 
 the School-Master. " If it were man's habit 
 to have the streets laid out on the old cow- 
 path principle in his cities he would be quite 
 as energetic, quite as prosperous, as he is 
 now." 
 
 " No fundamental principle involved ? 
 There is the fundamental principle of all 
 business success involved," said the Idiot, 
 warming up to his subject. "What is the 
 basic quality in the good business man? 
 Alertness. What is ' alertness ' ? Wide- 
 awakeishness. In this town it is impossible 
 for a man to sleep after a stated hour, and 
 
51 
 
 for no other reason than that the clatter of 
 the pavements prevents him. As a promoter 
 of alertness, Avhere is your cowpath? The 
 cowpaths of the Catskills, and we all know 
 the mountains are riddled by 'em, didn't 
 keep Eip Van Winkle awake, and I'll wager 
 Mr. Whitechoker here a year's board that 
 there isn't a man in his congregation who 
 can sleep a half-hour much less twenty 
 years with Broadway within hearing dis 
 tance. 
 
 " I tell you, Mr. Pedagog," he continued, 
 "it is the man from the cowpath who gets 
 buncoed. It's the man from the cowpath 
 who can't make a living even out of what 
 he calls his ' New York Store/ It is the 
 man from the cowpath who rejoices because 
 he can sell ten dollars' worth of sheep's-wool 
 for five dollars, and is happy when he goes 
 to meeting dressed up in a four-dollar suit 
 of clothes that has cost him twenty." 
 
 " Your theory, my young friend," observed 
 the School-Master, "is as fragile as this 
 cup " tapping his coffee-cup. " The coun 
 tryman of whom you speak is up and doing 
 long before you or I or your successful mer 
 chant, who has waxed great on noise as you 
 
52 
 
 put it, is awake. If the early bird catches 
 the worm, what becomes of your theory?" 
 
 " The early bird does get the bait/' replied 
 the Idiot. " But he does not catch the fish, 
 and I'll offer the board another wager that 
 the Belgian block merchant is wider awake at 
 S A.M., when he first opens his eyes, than hie 
 suburban brother who gets up at five is all 
 day. It's the extent to which the eyes are 
 opened that counts, and as for your state 
 ment that the fact that prosperity and noisy 
 streets go hand in hand is true only because 
 it happens to be so. that is an argument 
 which may be applied to any truth in exist 
 ence. I am because I happen to be, not be 
 cause I am. You are what you are because 
 you are, because if you were not, you wonM 
 not be what you are." 
 
 "Your logic is delightful," said the 
 School-Master, scornfulty. 
 
 "I strive to please," replied the Idiot. 
 " But I do agree with the Bibliomaniac that 
 our streets are far from perfection," he add 
 ed. " In my opinion they should be laid in 
 strata. On the ground-floor should be the 
 sewers and telegraph pipes ; above this should 
 be the water-mains ; then a layer for tracks ; 
 
53 
 
 then a broad stratum for carriages, above 
 which should be a promenade for pedes 
 trians. .The promenade for pedestrians 
 should be divided into four sections one for 
 persons of leisure, one for those in a hurry, 
 one for peddlers, and one for beggars." 
 
 " Highly original," said the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 "And so cheap," added the School-Mas 
 ter. 
 
 " In no part of the world," said the Idiot, 
 in response to the last comment, " do we 
 get something for nothing. Of course this 
 scheme would be costly, but it would in 
 crease prosperity " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " laughed the School-Master, sa 
 tirically. 
 
 " Laugh away, but you cannot gainsay my 
 point. Our prosperity would increase, for 
 we should not be always excavating to get at 
 our pipes; our surface cars with a clear 
 track would gain for us rapid transit, our 
 truck-drivers would not be subjected to the 
 temptations of stopping by the wayside to 
 overturn a coupe, or to run down a pedes 
 trian; our fine equipages would in conse 
 quence need fewer repairs; and as for the 
 pedestrians, the beggars, if relegated to 
 
54 
 
 themselves, would be forced out of business 
 as would also the street-peddlers. The men 
 in a hurry would not be delayed by loung 
 ers, beggars, and peddlers; and the loungers 
 would derive inestimable benefit from the 
 arrangement in the saving of wear and tear 
 on their clothes and minds by contact with 
 the busy world/' 
 
 "It would be delightful," acceded the 
 School-Master, "particularly on Sundays, 
 when they were all loungers." 
 
 "Yes," replied the Idiot. "It would be 
 delightful then, especially in summer, when 
 covered with an awning to shield promenad- 
 ers from the sun." 
 
 Mr. Pedagog sighed, and the Bibliomani 
 ac, wearily declining a second cup of coffee, 
 left the table with the Doctor, earnestly dis 
 cussing with that worthy gentleman the 
 causes of weakmindedness. 
 
VIII 
 
 " THERE'S a friend of mine up near Kiver- 
 dale," said the Idiot, as he unfolded his nap 
 kin and let his bill flutter from it to the floor, 
 " who's tried to make a name for himself in 
 literature." 
 
 " What's his name ? " asked the Biblioma 
 niac, interested at once. 
 
 " That's just the trouble. He hasn't made 
 it yet," replied the Idiot. " He hasn't suc 
 ceeded in his courtship of the Muse, and be 
 yond himself and a few friends his name is 
 utterly unknown." 
 
 " What work has he tried ? " queried the 
 School-Master, pouring unadmonished two 
 portions of skimmed milk over his oatmeal. 
 
 " A little of everything. First he wrote a 
 novel. It had an immense circulation, and 
 he only lost $300 on it. All of his friends 
 
56 
 
 took a copy I've got one that he gave me 
 and I believe two hundred newspapers were 
 fortunate enough to secure the book for re 
 view. His father bought two, and tried to 
 obtain the balance of the edition, but didn't 
 have enough money. That was gratifying, 
 but gratification is more apt to deplete than 
 to strengthen a bank account." 
 
 " I had not expected so extraordinarily 
 wise an observation from one so unusually 
 unwise," said the School-Master, coldly. 
 
 " Thank you," returned the Idiot. " But 
 I think your remark is rather contradictory. 
 You would naturally expect wise observa 
 tions from the unusually unwise; that is, if 
 your teaching that the expression 'unusual 
 ly unwise ' is but another form of the ex 
 pression ' usually wise ' is correct. But, as 
 I was saying, when the genial instructor of 
 youth interrupted me with his flattery/' 
 continued the Idiot, "gratification is grati 
 fying but not filling, so my friend concluded 
 that he had better give up novel-writing and 
 try jokes. He kept at that a year, and man 
 aged to clear his postage-stamps. His jokes 
 were good, but too classic for the tastes of 
 the editors. Editors are peculiar. They 
 
57 
 
 have no respect for age particularly in the 
 matter of jests. Some of my friend's jokes 
 had seemed good enough for Plutarch to 
 print when he had a publisher at his mercy, 
 hut they didn't seem to suit the high and 
 mighty products of this age who sit in judg 
 ment on such things in the comic-paper of 
 fices. So he gave up jokes." 
 
 " Does he still know you ? " asked the land 
 lady. 
 
 " Yes, madame," observed the Idiot. 
 
 " Then he hasn't given up all jokes/' she 
 retorted, with fine scorn. 
 
 " Tee-he-hee ! " laughed the School-Mas 
 ter. " Pretty good, Mrs. Smithers pretty 
 good." 
 
 "Yes," said the Idiot. "That is good, 
 and, by Jove! it differs from your butter, 
 Mrs. Smithers, because it's entirely fresh. 
 It's good enough to print, and I don't think 
 the butter is." 
 
 " What did your friend do next ? " asked 
 Mr. "Whitechoker. 
 
 "He was employed by a funeral director 
 in Philadelphia to write obituary verses for 
 memorial cards." 
 
 " And was he successful ? " 
 
58 
 
 " For a time ; but he lost his position be 
 cause of an error made by a careless compos 
 itor in a marble-yard. He had written, 
 
 " ' Here lies the hero of a hundred fights 
 
 Approximated he a perfect man; 
 He fought for country and his country's rights,. 
 And in the hottest battles led the van.' " 
 
 " Fine in sentiment and in execution ! " 
 observed Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 "Truly so/' returned the Idiot. "But 
 when the compositor in the marble-yard got 
 it engraved on the monument, my friend 
 was away, and when the army post that was 
 to pay the bill received the monument, the- 
 quatrain read, 
 
 " ' Here lies the hero of a hundred flights 
 
 Approximated he a perfect one; 
 He fought his country and his country's rights,. 
 And in the hottest battles led the run.' " 
 
 " Awful ! " ejaculated the Minister. 
 
 " Dreadful ! " said the landlady, forgetting 
 to be sarcastic. 
 
 " What happened ? " asked the School- 
 Master. 
 
 " He was bounced, of course, without a 
 cent of pay, and the company failed the next 
 
'"HE GATE UP JOKES'" 
 
59 
 
 week, so he couldn't make anything by suing 
 for what they owed him." 
 
 " Mighty hard luck," said the Biblioma 
 niac. 
 
 "Very; but there was one bright side to 
 the case," observed the Idiot. " He man 
 aged to sell both versions of the quatrain af 
 terwards for five dollars. He sold the origi 
 nal one to a religious weekly for a dollar, 
 and got four dollars for the other one from a 
 comic paper. Then he wrote an anecdote 
 about the whole thing for a Sunday news 
 paper, and got three dollars more out of it." 
 
 "And what is your friend doing now ? " 
 asked the Doctor. 
 
 " Oh, he's making a mint of money now, 
 but no name." 
 
 " In literature?" 
 
 " Yes. He writes advertisements on sal 
 ary," returned the Idiot. " He is writing 
 now a recommendation of tooth-powder in 
 Indian dialect." 
 
 " Why didn't he try writing an epic ? " said 
 the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " Because," replied the Idiot, " the one 
 aim of his life has been to be original, and 
 he couldn't reconcile that with epic poetry." 
 
GO 
 
 At which remark the landlady stooped 
 over, and recovering the Idiot's bill from 
 under the table, called the maid, and osten 
 tatiously requested her to hand it to the Idiot. 
 He, taking a cigarette from his pocket, 
 thanked the maid for the attention, and roll 
 ing the slip into a taper, thoughtfully stuck 
 one end of it into the alcohol light under the 
 coffee-pot, and lighting the cigarette with it, 
 walked nonchalantly from the room. 
 
IX 
 
 " I'VE just been reading a book," began the 
 Idiot. 
 
 "I thought you looked rather pale/' said 
 the School-Master. 
 
 " Yes/' returned the Idiot, cheerfully, " it 
 made me feel pale. It was about the pleas 
 ures of country life; and when I contrasted 
 rural blessedness as it was there depicted 
 with urban life as we live it, I felt as if my 
 youth were being thrown away. I still feel 
 as if I were wasting my sweetness on the 
 desert air." 
 
 " Why don't you move ? " queried the Bib 
 liomaniac, suggestively. 
 
 "If I were purely selfish I should do so 
 at once, but I am, like my good friend Mr. 
 Whitechoker, a slave to duty. I deem it my 
 duty to stay here to keep the School-Master 
 fully informed in the various branches of 
 
62 
 
 knowledge which are day by day opened up, 
 many of which seem to be so far beyond the 
 reach of one of his conservative habits; to 
 assist Mr. Whitechoker in his crusades 
 against vice at this table and elsewhere; to 
 give the Bibliomaniac the benefit of my ad 
 vice in regard to those precious little tomes 
 he no longer buys to make life worth the 
 living for all of you, to say nothing of enab 
 ling Mrs. Smithers to keep up the extraor 
 dinarily high standard of this house by means 
 of the hard-earned stipend I pay to her every 
 Mondajr morning/' 
 
 " Every Monday ? " queried the School- 
 Master. 
 
 " Every Monday/' returned the Idiot. 
 " That is, of course, every Monday that I pay. 
 The things one gets to eat in the country, 
 the air one breathes, the utter freedom from 
 restraint, the thousand and more things 
 one enjoys in the suburbs that are not at 
 tainable here it is these that make my 
 heart yearn for the open." 
 
 "Well, it's all rot," said the School-Mas 
 ter, impatiently. " Country life is ideal only 
 in books. Books do not tell of running for 
 trains through blinding snowstorms ; writers 
 
63 
 
 do not expatiate on the delights of waking 
 on cold winter nights and finding your piano 
 and parlor furniture afloat because of 
 bursted pipes, with the 
 plumber, like Sheridan at 
 Winchester, twenty miles 
 away. They are dumb on 
 the subject of the 
 ecstasy one feels 
 when pushing a 
 twenty-pound 
 lawn - mower 
 
 up and 
 down a 
 weed patch at the 
 end of a wearisome 
 hot summer's day. 
 They are silent " 
 
 " Don't get ex 
 cited, Mr. Pedagog, 
 please," interrupted 
 the Idiot. " I am not 
 contemplating leaving you and Mrs. Smith- 
 ers, but I do pine for a little garden of my 
 own, where I could raise an occasional can of 
 
 . HINU-yUARTEB OP LAMB 
 GAMBOLLING ABOUT ITS 
 NATIVE HEATH ' " 
 
64 
 
 tomatoes. I dream sometimes of getting milk 
 fresh from the pump, instead of twenty-four 
 hours after it has been drawn, as we do here. 
 In my musings it seems to me to be almost 
 idyllic to have known a spring chicken in his 
 infancy; to have watched a hind-quarter of 
 lamb gambolling about its native heath be 
 fore its muscles became adamant, and before 
 chopped-up celery tops steeped in vinegar 
 Avere poured upon it in the hope of hypnotiz 
 ing boarders into the belief that spring lamb 
 and mint-sauce lay before them. What care 
 I how hard it is to rise every morning before 
 six in winter to thaw out the boiler, so long 
 as the night coming finds me seated in the 
 genial glow of the gas log ! What man is he 
 that would complain of having to bale out 
 his cellar every week, if, on the other hand, 
 that cellar gains thereby a fertility that 
 keeps its floor sheeny, soft, and green an 
 interior tennis-court from spring to spring, 
 causing the gladsome click of the lawn-mow 
 er to be heard within its walls all through 
 the still watches of the winter day? I tell 
 you, sir, it is the life to lead, that of onr 
 rural brother. I do not believe that in this 
 whole vast city there is a cellar like that an 
 
'A LITTLE GARDEN OF MY OWN, WHERE I COULD RAISE AN 
 OCCASIONAL CAN OF TOMATOES ' " 
 
65 
 
 in-door garden-patch, as it were. Do you 
 happen to recall one ? " 
 
 " No/' returned the Doctor ; " and it is a 
 good thing there isn't. There is enough 
 sickness in the world without bringing any 
 of your rus ideas in urbe. I've lived in the 
 country, sir, and I assure you it is not what 
 
 '"TOE GLADSOME CLICK OF THE LAWN-MOWEJt ' " 
 
 it is written up to be. Country life is mis 
 ery, melancholy, and malaria." 
 
 "You must have struck a profitable sec 
 tion, Doctor," returned the Idiot, taking 
 possession of three steaming buckwheat 
 
66 
 
 cakes to the dismay of Mr. Whitechoker, who 
 was about to reach out for them himself. 
 " And I should have supposed that your good 
 business sense would have restrained you 
 from leaving/' 
 
 " Then the countryman is poor always 
 poor/' continued the Doctor, ignoring the 
 Idiot's sarcastic comments. 
 
 "Ah! that accounts for it," observed the 
 Idiot. " I see why you did not stay ; for 
 what shall it profit a man to save a patient 
 if practice, like virtue, is to be its own re 
 ward?" 
 
 " Your suggestion, sir," retorted the Doc 
 tor, " betrays an unhealthy frame of mind." 
 
 "That's all right, Doctor," returned the 
 Idiot; " but please do not diagnose the case 
 any further. I can't afford an expert opin 
 ion as to my mental condition. But to re 
 turn to our subject: you two gentlemen ap 
 pear to have had unhappy experiences in 
 country life quite different from those of a 
 friend of mine who owns a farm. He doesn't 
 have to run for trains ; he is independent of 
 plumbers, because the only pipes in his house 
 are for smoking purposes. The farm pro 
 duces corn enough to keep his family sup- 
 
67 
 
 plied all the year round and to sell a balance 
 at a profit. Oats and wheat are harvested 
 to an extent which keeps the cattle and de 
 clares dividends besides. He never suffers 
 from the cold or heat. He is never afraid 
 of losing his house or barns by fire, because 
 the whole fire department of the neighboring 
 village is, to a man, in Icve with the house 
 keeper's daughter, and is always on hand in 
 force. The chickens are the envy and pride 
 of the county, and there are so many of them 
 that they have to take turns in going to 
 roost. The pigs are the most intelligent of 
 their kind, and are so happy they never 
 grunt. In fact, everything is lovely and 
 cheap, the only thing that hangs high being 
 the goose." 
 
 " Quite an ideal, no doubt," put in the 
 School-Master, scornfully. "I suppose his 
 is one of those model farms with steam- 
 pipes under the walks to melt the snow in 
 winter, and of course there is a vein of coal 
 growing right up into his furnace ready to 
 be lit." 
 
 " Yes," observed the Bibliomaniac ; " and 
 no doubt the chickens lay eggs in every 
 style poached, fried, scrambled, and boiled. 
 
The weeds in the garden grow so fast, I sup 
 pose, that they pull themselves up by the 
 roots; and if there is anything left undone 
 at the end of the day I presume tramps in 
 dress suits, and courtly in manner, spring 
 out of the ground and finish up for him with 
 out charge." 
 
 "I'll bet he's not on good terms with his 
 neighbors if he has everything you speak of 
 in such perfection. These farmers get 
 frightfully jealous of each other," asserted 
 the Doctor, with a positiveness that seemed 
 to be born of experience. 
 
 " He never quarrelled with one of them in 
 his life," returned the Idiot. " He doesn't 
 know them well enough to quarrel with 
 them; in fact, I doubt if he ever sees them 
 at all. He's very exclusive." 
 
 " Of course he is a born farmer to get 
 everything the way he has it," suggested 
 Mrs. Smithers. 
 
 "No, he isn't. He's a broker," said the 
 Idiot, "and a very successful one. I see 
 him on the street every day." 
 
 "Does he employ a man to run the 
 farm ? " asked the Clergyman. 
 
 "No," returned the Idiot, "he has too 
 
much sense and too few dollars to do any 
 such foolish thing as that." 
 
 " It must be one of those self-winding 
 stock farms/' put in the School-Master, 
 scornfully. " But I don't see how he can be 
 a successful broker and make money off his 
 farm at the same time. Your statements do 
 not agree, either. You said he never had to 
 run for trains." 
 
 "Well, he never has," returned the Idiot, 
 calmly. " He never goes near his farm. He 
 doesn't have to. It's leased to the husband 
 of the house-keeper whose daughter has a 
 crush on the fire department. He takes his 
 pay in produce, and gets more than if he 
 took it in cash on the basis of the New York 
 vegetable market." 
 
 " Then you have got us into an argument 
 about country life that ends " began the 
 School-Master, indignantly. 
 
 " That ends where it leaves off," retorted 
 the Idiot, departing with a smile on his lips. 
 
 " He's an Idiot from Idaho," asserted the 
 Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " Yes; but I'm afraid idiocy is contagious," 
 observed the Doctor, with a grin and sidelong 
 glance at the School-Master. 
 
" GOOD-MORXIXG, gentlemen," said the 
 Idiot, as he seated himself at the breakfast- 
 table and glanced over his mail. 
 
 " Good-morning yourself," returned the 
 Poet. " You have an unusually large num 
 ber of letters this morning. All checks, I 
 hope?" 
 
 " Yes," replied the Idiot. " All checks of 
 one kind or another. Mostly checks on am 
 bition otherwise, rejections from my 
 friends the editors." 
 
 " You don't mean to say that you write 
 for the papers ? " put in the School-Master, 
 with an incredulous smile. 
 
 " I try to," returned the Idiot, meekly. 
 "If the papers don't take 'em, I find them 
 useful in curing my genial friend who im 
 bibes of insomnia." 
 
 " What do you write advertisements ? " 
 queried the Bibliomaniac. 
 
71 
 
 " No. Advertisement writing is an art to 
 which I dare not aspire. It's too great a tax 
 on the brain/' replied the Idiot. 
 
 " Tax on what ? " asked the Doctor. He 
 was going to squelch the Idiot. 
 
 " The brain," returned the latter, not 
 ready to be squelched. " It's a little thing 
 people use to think with, Doctor. I'd advise 
 you to get one/' Then he added, " I write 
 poems and foreign letters mostly." 
 
 " I did not know that you had ever been 
 abroad," said the Clergyman. 
 
 " I never have," returned the Idiot. 
 
 " Then how, may I ask," said Mr. White- 
 
 'YOU DON'T MEAN TO SAY THAT YOU WRITE FOB THE 
 
 PAPERS? 1 " 
 
72 
 
 choker, severely, "how can you write for 
 eign letters ? " 
 
 "With my stub pen, of course," replied 
 the Idiot. " How did you suppose with an 
 oyster-knife ? " 
 
 The Clergyman sighed. 
 
 " I should like to hear some of your po 
 ems," said the Poet. 
 
 " Very well/' returned the Idiot. " Here's 
 one that has just returned from the Bengal 
 Monthly. ,. It's ahout a writer who died some 
 years ago. Shakespeare's his name. You've 
 heard of Shakespeare, haven't you, Mr. Ped- 
 agog ? " he added. 
 
 Then, as there was no answer, he read the 
 verse, which was as follows : 
 
 SETTLED. 
 
 Yes ! Shakespeare wrote the plays 'tis clear to me. 
 
 Lord Bacon's claim's condemned before the bar. 
 He'd not have penned, "what fools these mortals 
 
 be!" 
 
 But more correct " what fools these mortals 
 are! " 
 
 " That's not bad," said the Poet. 
 " Thanks," returned the Idiot. " I wish 
 you were an editor. I wrote that last spring, 
 
73 
 
 and it has been coming back to me at the 
 rate of once a week ever since." 
 
 " It is too short," said the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " It's an epigram," said the Idiot. " How 
 many yards long do you think epigrams 
 should be?" 
 
 The Bibliomaniac scorned to reply. 
 
 " I agree with the Bibliomaniac," said the 
 School-Master. "It is too short. People 
 want greater quantity." 
 
 " "Well, here is quantity for you," said the 
 Idiot. " Quantity as she is not wanted by 
 nine comic papers I wot of. This poem is 
 called : 
 
 "'THE TURNING OF THE WORM. 
 " ' How hard my fate perhaps you'll gather in, 
 My dearest reader, when I tell you that 
 
 I entered into this fair world a twin 
 The one was spare enough, the other fat. 
 
 '"I was, of course, the lean one of the two, 
 
 The homelier as well, and consequently 
 In ecstasy o'er Jim my parents flew, 
 And good of me was spoken accident'ly. 
 
 " ' As boys we went to school, and Jim, of course, 
 
 Was e'er his teacher's favorite, and ranked 
 Among the lads renowned for moral force, 
 Whilst I was every day right soundly spanked. 
 
74 
 
 " ' Jim had an angel face, but there he stopped. 
 
 I never knew a lad who'd sin so oft 
 And look so like a branch of heaven lopped 
 From off the parent trunk that grows aloft. 
 
 " ' I seemed an imp indeed 'twas often said 
 
 That I resembled much Beelzebub. 
 My face was freckled and my hair was red 
 The kind of looking boy that men call scrub. 
 
 " ' Kind deeds, however, were my constant thought; 
 
 In everything I did the best I could; 
 I said my prayers thrice daily, and I sought 
 In all my ways to do the right and good. 
 
 " ' On Saturdays I'd do my Monday's sums, 
 
 While Jim would spend the day in search of 
 
 fun; 
 
 He'd sneak away and steal the neighbor's plums, 
 And, strange to say, to earth was never run. 
 
 " ' Whilst I, when study-time was haply through, 
 Would seek my brother in the neighbor's 
 
 orchard ; 
 
 Would find the neighbor there with anger blue, 
 And a the thieving culprit would be tortured. 
 
 " ' The sums I'd done he'd steal, this lad forsaken, 
 
 Then change my work, so that a paltry four 
 Would be my mark, whilst he had overtaken 
 The maximum and all the prizes bore. 
 
75 
 
 " ' In later years we loved the self-same maid ; 
 
 We sent her little presents, sweets, bouquets, 
 For which, alas! 'twas I that always paid; 
 And Jim the maid now honors and obeys. 
 
 " ' We entered politics in different roles, 
 And for a minor office each did run. 
 'Twas I was left left badly at the polls, 
 
 Because of fishy things that Jim had 
 done. 
 
 " ' When Jim went into business and failed, 
 
 I signed his notes and freed him from the 
 
 strife. 
 
 Which bankruptcy and ruin hath entailed 
 On them that lead a queer financial life. 
 
 " * Then, penniless, I learned that Jim had set 
 Aside before his failure hard to tell! 
 A half a million dollars on his pet 
 His Mrs. Jim the former lovely Nell. 
 
 " ' That wearied me of Jim. It may be right 
 
 For one to bear another's cross, but I 
 Quite fail to see it in its proper light, 
 
 If that's the rule man should be guided by. 
 
 " ' And since a fate perverse has had the wit 
 
 To mix us up so that the one's deserts 
 Upon the shoulders of the other sit, 
 No matter how the other one it hurts, 
 
76 
 
 *' ' I am resolved to take some mortal's life; 
 
 Just when, or where, or how, I do not reck, 
 So long as law will end tins horrid strife 
 
 And twist my dear twin brother's sinful 
 neck.' " 
 
 " There," said the Idiot, putting down the 
 manuscript. " How's that ? " 
 
 "I don't like it," said Mr. Whitechoker. 
 " It is immoral and vindictive. You should 
 accept the hardships of life, no matter how 
 unjust. The conclusion of your poem hor 
 rifies me, sir. I 
 
 " Have you tried your hand at dialect 
 poetry ? " asked the Doctor. 
 
 " Yes ; once," said the Idiot. " I sent it 
 to the Great Western Weekly. Oh yes. Here 
 it is. Sent back with thanks. It's an oc 
 tette written in cigar-box dialect." 
 
 "In wh-a-at?" asked the Poet. 
 
 " Cigar-box dialect. Here it is : 
 
 " ' O Manuel garcia alonzo, 
 
 Colorado especial H. Clay, 
 Invincible flora alphonzo, 
 
 Cigarette panatella el rey, 
 Victoria reina selectas 
 
 O twofer madura grandc 
 O conchas oscuro perfectas, 
 
 You drive all my sorrows away.'" 
 
77 
 
 " Ingenious, but vicious/' said the School- 
 Master, who does not smoke. 
 
 "Again thanks. How is this for a son 
 net ?" said the Idiot : 
 
 " ' When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
 And with old woes new wail my dear time's 
 
 waste : 
 
 Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 
 For precious friends hid in death's dateless 
 
 night, 
 
 And weep afresh love's long since cancel'd woe, 
 And moan the expense of many a vanish'd 
 
 sight : 
 
 Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
 And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
 The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
 Which I now pay as if not paid before. 
 But if the while I think of thee, dear friend! 
 All losses are restored and sorrows end.' " 
 
 " It is bosh ! " said the School-Master. 
 
 The Poet smiled quietly. 
 
 " Perfect bosh ! " repeated the School-Mas 
 ter. "And only shows how in weak hands 
 so beautiful a thing as the sonnet can be 
 made ridiculous." 
 
 " What's wrong with it? " asked the Idiot. 
 
 " It doesn't contain any thought or if it 
 
78 
 
 does,, no one can tell what the thought is. 
 Your rhymes are atrocious. Your phrase 
 ology is ridiculous. The whole thing is bad. 
 You'll never get anybody to print it/' 
 
 " I do not intend to try," said the Idiot, 
 meekly. 
 
 "You are wise," said the School-Master, 
 " to take my advice for once." 
 
 " No, it is not your advice that restrains 
 me," said the Idiot, dryly. " It is the 
 fact that this sonnet has already been 
 printed." 
 
 " In the name of Letters, where ? " cried 
 the School-Master. 
 
 " In the collected works of William Shake 
 speare," replied the Idiot, quietly. 
 
 The Poet laughed; Mrs. Smithers's eyes 
 filled with tears; and the School-Master for 
 once had absolutely nothing to say. 
 
XI 
 
 "Do you believe, Mr. Whitechoker," said 
 the Idiot, taking his place at the table, and 
 holding his plate up to the light, apparently 
 to see whether or not it was immaculate, 
 whereat the landlady sniffed 'comtemptu- 
 ously " do you believe that the love of 
 money is the root of all evil ? " 
 
 " I have always been of that impression," 
 returned Mr. Whitechoker, pleasantly. " In 
 fact, I am sure of it," he added. " There is 
 no evil thing in this world, sir, that cannot 
 be traced back to a point where greed is 
 found to be its main-spring and the source 
 of its strength." 
 
 " Then how do you reconcile this with 
 the scriptural story of the forbidden fruit? 
 Do you think the apples referred to were 
 figures of speech, the true import of which 
 was that Adam and Eve had their eyes on 
 the original surplus ? " 
 
80 
 
 "Well, of course, there you begin to 
 ah you seem to me to be going back to 
 the er the ah " 
 
 " Original root of all evil," prompted the 
 Idiot, calmly. 
 
 " Precisely/' returned Mr. Whitechoker, 
 with a sigh of relief. " Mrs. Smithers, I 
 think I'll have a dash of hot water in my 
 coffee this morning." Then, with a nervous 
 glance towards the Idiot, he added, address 
 ing the Bibliomaniac, " I think it looks like 
 rain." 
 
 "Keferring to the coffee, Mr. White- 
 choker ? " queried the Idiot, not disposed to- 
 let go of his victim quite so easily. 
 
 "Ah I don't quite follow you," replied 
 the Minister, with some annoyance. 
 
 " You said something looked like rain,. 
 and I asked you if the thing you referred to 
 was the coffee, for I was disposed to agree 
 with you," said the Idiot. 
 
 " I am sure," put in Mrs. Smithers, " that 
 a gentleman of Mr. Whitechoker's refine 
 ment would not make any such insinuation,, 
 sir. He is not the man to quarrel with what 
 is set before him." 
 
 "I ask your pardon, madame," returned 
 
"HOLDING HIS PLATE UP TO THE LIGHT" 
 
81 
 
 the Idiot, politely. " I hope that I am not 
 the man to quarrel with my food, either. 
 Indeed, I make it a rule to avoid unpleas 
 antness of all sorts, particularly with the 
 weak, under which category we find your 
 coffee. I simply wish to know to what Mr. 
 Whitechoker refers when he says 'it looks 
 like rain/ '' 
 
 "I mean, of course," said the Minister, 
 with as much calmness as he could com 
 mand and that was . not much " I mean 
 the day. The day looks as if it might be 
 rainy." 
 
 " Any one with a modicum of brain knows 
 what you meant, Mr,. Whitechoker," volun 
 teered the School-Master. 
 
 " Certainly," observed the Idiot, scraping 
 the butter from his toast ; " but to those 
 who have more than a modicum of brains 
 my reverend friend's remark was not en 
 tirely clear. If I am talking of cotton, and 
 a gentleman chooses to state that it looks 
 like snow, I know exactly what he means. 
 He doesn't mean that the day looks like 
 snow, however; he refers to the cotton. 
 Mr. Whitechoker, talking about coffee, 
 chooses to state that it looks like rain,. 
 8 
 
82 
 
 which it undoubtedly does. I, realizing 
 that, as Mrs. Smithers says, it is not the 
 gentleman's habit to attack too violently 
 the food which is set before him, manifest 
 some surprise, and, giving the gentleman 
 the benefit of the doubt, afford him an op 
 portunity to set himself right." 
 
 " Change the subject/' said the Biblio 
 maniac, curtly. 
 
 " With pleasure/' answered the Idiot, fill 
 ing his glass with cream. "We'll change 
 the subject, or the object, or anything you 
 choose. We'll have another breakfast, or 
 another variety of biscuits frappe any 
 thing, in short, to keep peace at the table. 
 Tell me, Mr. Pedagog/' he added, "is the 
 use of the word c it ' in the sentence ' it looks 
 like rain/ perfectly correct ? " 
 
 " I don't know why it is not/' returned the 
 School-Master, uneasily. He was not at all 
 desirous of parleying with the Idiot. 
 
 "And is it correct to suppose that c it' 
 refers to the day is the day supposed to 
 look like rain ? or do we simply use ( it ' to 
 express a condition which confronts us ? " 
 
 " It refers to the latter, of course." 
 
 " Then the full text of Mr. Whitechoker's 
 
"'l BELIEVE YOU'D BLOW OUT THE GAS IN TOUR 
 BED-ROOM ' " 
 
83 
 
 remark is, I suppose, that ' the rainy condi 
 tion of the atmosphere which confronts us 
 looks like rain ? ' ' 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so," sighed the School- 
 Master, wearily. 
 
 " Kather an unnecessary sort of statement 
 that ! " continued the Idiot. " It's some 
 thing like asserting that a man looks like 
 himself, or, as in the case of a child's 
 primer 
 
 "'See the cat?' 
 
 " ' Yes, I see the cat/ 
 
 "'What is the cat?' 
 
 " ' The cat is a cat. Scat cat ! ' 
 
 At this even Mrs. Smithers smiled. 
 
 " I don't agree with Mr. Pedagog," put in 
 the Bibliomaniac, after a pause. 
 
 Here the School-Master shook his head 
 warningly at the Bibliomaniac, as if to indi 
 cate that he was not in good form. 
 
 " So I observe," remarked the Idiot. 
 "You have upset him completely. See how 
 Mr. Pedagog trembles ? " he added, address 
 ing the genial gentleman who occasionally 
 imbibed. 
 
 "I don't mean that way," sneered the 
 Bibliomaniac, bound to set Mr. Whitechoker 
 
84 
 
 straight. " I mean that the word ' it/ as em 
 ployed in that sentence, stands for day. The 
 day looks like rain." 
 
 "Did you ever see a day?" queried the 
 Idiot. 
 
 " Certainly I have/' returned the Biblio 
 maniac. 
 
 " What does it look like ? " was the calmly 
 put question. 
 
 The Bibliomaniac's impatience was here 
 almost too great for safety, and the manner 
 in which his face colored aroused consid 
 erable interest in the breast of the Doctor, 
 who was a good deal of a specialist in 
 apoplexy. 
 
 " Was it a whole day you saw, or only a 
 half-day ? " persisted the Idiot. 
 
 "You may think you are very funny/' 
 retorted the Bibliomaniac. "I think you 
 are" 
 
 "Now don't get angry," returned the 
 Idiot. " There are two or three things I do 
 not know, and I am anxious to learn. I'd 
 like to know how a day looks to one to whom 
 it is a visible object. If it is visible, is it 
 tangible? and if so, how does it feel? I 
 never felt a day myself." 
 
85 
 
 " The visible is always tangible," asserted 
 the School-Master, recklessly. 
 
 "How about a red-hot stove, or mani 
 fest indignation, or a view from a mountain- 
 top, or, as in the case of the young man in 
 the novel who ' suddenly waked/ and, ' look 
 ing anxiously about him, saw no one ? ' " re 
 turned the Idiot, imperturbably. 
 
 " Tut ! " ejaculated the Bibliomaniac. " If 
 I had brains like yours, I'd blow them out." 
 
 " Yes, I think you would," observed the 
 Idiot, folding up his napkin. " You're just 
 the man to do a thing like that. I believe 
 you'd blow out the gas in your bedroom 
 if there wasn't a sign over it requesting you 
 not to." And filling his match-box from the 
 landlady's mantel supply, the Idiot hurried 
 from the room, and soon after left the house. 
 
XII 
 
 " IF my father hadn't met with reverses " 
 the Idiot began. 
 
 " Did you really have a father ? " inter 
 rupted the School-Master. " I thought you 
 were one of these self-made Idiots. How 
 terrible it must be for a man to think that he 
 is responsible for you ! " 
 
 " Yes/' rejoined the Idiot ; " my father 
 finds it rather hard to stand up under his 
 responsibility for me; but he is a brave old 
 gentleman, and he manages to bear the burden 
 very well with the aid of my mother for I 
 have a mother, too, Mr. Pedagog. A womanly 
 mother she is, too, with all the natural fol 
 lies, such as fondness for and belief in her 
 boy. Why, it would soften your heart to see 
 how she looks on me. She thinks I am the 
 most everlastingly brilliant man she ever 
 knew excepting father, of course, who has 
 
" ' HIS FATRY STORIES WKRE TOLD HIM IN WORDS OP TEN 
 SYLLABLES ' " 
 
87 
 
 always been a hero of heroes in her eyes, be 
 cause he never rails at misfortune, never 
 spoke an unkind word to her in his life, and 
 just lives gently along waiting for the end of 
 all things." 
 
 "Do you think it is right in you to de 
 ceive your mother in this way making her 
 think you a young Napoleon of intellect 
 when you know you are an Idiot ? " observed 
 the Bibliomaniac, with a twinkle in his eye. 
 
 " Why certainly I do," returned the Idiot, 
 calmly. "It's my place to make the old 
 folks happy if I can; and if thinking me 
 nineteen different kinds of a genius is going 
 to fill my mother's heart with happiness, I'm 
 going to let her think it. What's the use 
 of destroying other people's idols even if we 
 do know them to be hollow mockeries? Do 
 you think you do a praiseworthy act, for in 
 stance, when you kick over the heathen's 
 stone gods and leave him without any at all ? 
 You may not have noticed it, but I have 
 that it is easier to pull down an idol than it 
 is to rear an ideal. I have had idols shat 
 tered myself, and I haven't found that the 
 pedestals they used to occupy have been 
 rented since. They are there yet and emp- 
 
88 
 
 ty standing as monuments to what once 
 seemed good to me and I'm no happier nor 
 no better for being disillusioned. So it is 
 with my mother. I let her go on and think 
 me perfect. It does her good, and it does 
 me good because it makes me try to live 
 up to that idea of hers as to what I am. If 
 she had the same opinion of me that we all 
 have she'd be the most miserable woman 
 in the world." 
 
 " We don't all think so badly of you," said 
 the Doctor, rather softened by the Idiot's 
 remarks. 
 
 " No/' put in the Bibliomaniac. " You are 
 all right. You breathe normally, and you 
 have nice blue eyes. You are graceful and 
 pleasant to look upon, and if you'd been 
 born dumb we'd esteem you very highly. It 
 is only your manners and your theories that 
 we don't like; but even in these we are dis 
 posed to believe that you are a well-mean 
 ing child." 
 
 " That is precisely the way to put it," as 
 sented the School-Master. " You are harm 
 less even when most annoying. For my own 
 part, I think the most objectionable feature 
 about you is that you suffer from that un- 
 
' I THOUGHT MY FATHER A MEAN-SPIRITED 
 
 ASSASSIN ' " 
 
89 
 
 fortunately not uncommon malady, extreme 
 youth. You are young for your age, and if 
 you only wouldn't talk, I think we should 
 get on famously together." 
 
 "You overwhelm me with your compli 
 ments," said the Idiot. " I am sorry I am 
 so young, but I cannot be brought to believe 
 that that is my own fault. One must live to 
 attain age, and how the deuce can one live 
 when one boards ?" 
 
 As no one ventured to reply to this ques 
 tion, the force of which very evidently, how 
 ever, was fully appreciated by Mrs. Smithers, 
 the Idiot continued: 
 
 " Youth is thrust upon us in our infancy, 
 and must be endured until such a time as 
 Fate permits us to account ourselves cured. 
 It swoops down upon us when we have 
 neither the strength nor the brains to resent 
 it. Of course there are some superior per 
 sons in this world who never were young. 
 ]\Ir. Pedagog, I doubt not, was ushered into 
 this world with all three sets of teeth cut, 
 and not wailing as most infants are, but dis 
 cussing the most abstruse philosophical 
 problems. His fairy stories were told him, 
 if ever, in words of ten syllables ; and his fa- 
 
90 
 
 ther's first remark to him was doubtless an 
 inquiry as to his opinion on the subject of 
 Latin and Greek in our colleges. It's all 
 right to be this kind of a baby if you like 
 that sort of thing. For my part, I rejoice 
 to think that there was once a day when I 
 thought my father a mean-spirited assassin, 
 because he wouldn't tie a string to the moon 
 and let me make it rise and set as suited 
 my sweet will. Babies of Mr. Pedagog's 
 sort are fortunately like angels' visits, few 
 and far between. In spite of his stand in 
 the matter, though. I can't help thinking 
 there was a great deal of truth in a rhyme 
 a friend of mine got off on Youth. It fits 
 the case. He said : 
 
 " ' Youth is a state of being we attain 
 
 In early years ; to some 'tis but a crime 
 And, like the mumps, most agdd men complain, 
 It can't be caught, alas! a second time.' " 
 
 " Your rhymes are interesting, and your 
 reasoning, as usual, is faulty," said the 
 School-Master. " I passed a very pleasant 
 childhood, though it was a childhood devoted, 
 as you have insinuated, to serious rather than 
 to flippant pursuits. I wasn't particularly 
 
91 
 
 fond of tag and hide-and-seek, nor do I think 
 that even as an infant I ever cried for the 
 moon." 
 
 "It would have expanded your chest if 
 you had, Mr. Pedagog," observed the Idiot, 
 quietly. 
 
 " So it would, but I never found myself 
 short-winded, sir," retorted the School-Mas 
 ter, with some acerbity. 
 
 " That is evident ; but go on," said the 
 Idiot. " You never passed a childish youth 
 nor a youthful childhood, and therefore 
 what?" 
 
 " Therefore, in my present condition, I am 
 normally contented. I have no youthful fol 
 lies to look back upon, no indiscretions to 
 regret; I never knowingly told a lie, and " 
 
 " All of which proves that you never were 
 young," put in the Idiot ; " and you will ex 
 cuse me if I say it, but my father is the 
 model for me rather than so exalted a per 
 sonage as yourself. He is still young, though 
 turned seventy, and I don't believe on his 
 own account there ever was a boy who played 
 hookey more, who prevaricated oftener, who 
 purloined others' fruits with greater fre 
 quency than he. * He was guilty of every 
 9 
 
92 
 
 crime in the calendar of youth; and if there 
 is one thing that delights him more than 
 another, it is to sit on a winter's night be 
 fore the crackling log and tell us yarns about 
 his youthful follies and his boyhood indiscre 
 tions." 
 
 " But is he normally a happy man ? " 
 queried the School-Master. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " No. He's an a&normally happy man, 
 because he's got his follies and indiscretions 
 to look back upon and not forward to." 
 
 " Ahem ! " said Mrs. Smithers. 
 
 " Dear me ! " ejaculated Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 Mr. Pedagog said nothing, and the break 
 fast-room was soon deserted. 
 
XIII 
 
 THERE was an air of suppressed excite 
 ment about Mrs. Smithers and Mr. Pedagog 
 as they sat down to breakfast. Something 
 had happened, but just what that something 
 was no one as yet knew, although the genial 
 old gentleman had a sort of notion as to what 
 it was. 
 
 "Pedagog has been good-natured enough 
 for an engaged man for nearly a week now/' 
 he whispered to the Idiot, who had asked 
 him what he supposed was up, " and I have 
 a half idea that Mrs. S. has at last brought 
 him to the point of proposing." 
 
 " It's the other way, I imagine," returned 
 the Idiot. 
 
 "You don't really think she has rejected 
 him, do you ? " queried the genial old gen 
 tleman. 
 
 " Oh, no ; not by a great deal. I mean 
 
94 
 
 that I think it very likely that he has brought 
 her to the point. This is leap-year, you 
 know/' said the Idiot. 
 
 "Well, if I were a betting man, which I 
 haven't been since night before last, I'd lay 
 you a wager that they're engaged," said the 
 old gentleman. 
 
 "I'm glad you've given up betting," re 
 joined the Idiot, " because I'm sure I'd take 
 the bet if you offered it and then I believe 
 I'd lose." 
 
 "We are to have Philadelphia spring 
 chickens this morning, gentlemen," said Mrs. 
 Smithers, beaming upon all at the table. 
 " It's a special treat." 
 
 " Which we all appreciate, my dear Mrs. 
 Smithers," observed the Idiot, with a cour 
 teous bow to his landlady. ^And, by the 
 way, why is it that Philadelphia spring 
 chickens do not appear until autumn, do you 
 suppose? Is it because Philadelphia spring 
 doesn't get around until it is autumn every 
 where else ? " 
 
 " No, I think not," said the Doctor. " I 
 think it is because Philadelphia spring chick 
 ens are not sufficiently hardened to be able 
 to stand the strain of exportation much be- 
 
" ' MRS. S. BROUGHT HIM TO THE POINT OF 
 PROPOSING ' " 
 
95 
 
 fore September, or else Philadelphia people 
 do not get so sated with such delicacies as 
 to permit any of the crop to go into other 
 than Philadelphia markets before that period. 
 For my part, I simply love them." 
 
 " So do I," said the Idiot ; " and if Mrs. 
 Smithers will pardon me for expressing a 
 preference for any especial part of the piece 
 de resistance, I will state to her that if, in 
 helping me, she will give me two drumsticks, 
 a pair of second joints, and plenty of the 
 white meat, I shall be very happy." 
 
 "You ought to have said so yesterday," 
 said the School-Master, with a surprisingly 
 genial laugh. "Then Mrs. Smithers could 
 have prepared an individual chicken for 
 you." 
 
 " That would be too much," returned the 
 Idiot, "and I should really hesitate to eat 
 too much spring chicken. I never did it in 
 my life, and don't know what the effect 
 would be. Would it be harmful, Doctor ? " 
 
 " I really do not know how it would be," 
 answered the Doctor. " In all my wide ex 
 perience I have never found a case of the 
 kind." 
 
 "It's very rarely that one gets too much 
 
96 
 
 spring chicken/' said Mr. Whitechoker. " I 
 haven't had any experience with patients, as 
 my friend the Doctor has; but I have lived 
 in many boarding-houses, and I have never 
 yet known of any one even getting enough." 
 
 " Well, perhaps we shall have all we want 
 this morning," said Mrs. Smithers. " I hope 
 so, at any rate, for I wish this day to be a 
 memorable one in our house. Mr. Pedagog 
 has something to tell you. John, will you 
 announce it now ? " 
 
 " Did you hear that ? " whispered the Idiot. 
 " She called him ' John/ " 
 
 " Yes," said the genial old gentleman. 
 " I didn't know Pedagog had a first name 
 before." 
 
 " Certainly, my dear that is, my very dear 
 Mrs. Smithers," stammered the School-Mas 
 ter, getting red in the face. " The fact is, 
 gentlemen ahem ! I er we er that is, 
 of course er Mrs. Smithers has er ahem ! 
 Mrs. Smithers has asked me to be her 
 I er I should say I have asked Mrs. 
 Smithers to be my husb my wife, and er 
 she" 
 
 " Hoorah ! " cried the Idiot, jumping up 
 from the table and grasping Mr. Pedagog by 
 
" ' HOOKAH !' CRIED THE IDIOT, GRASPING MR. PEDAGOG 
 BY THE HAND" 
 
97 
 
 the hand. " Hoorah ! You've got in ahead 
 of us, old man, but we are just as glad when 
 we think of your good-fortune. Your gain 
 may be our loss but what of that where the 
 happiness of our dear landlady is at stake ? " 
 
 Mrs. Smithers glanced coyly at the Idiot 
 and smiled. 
 
 " Thank you," said the School-Master. 
 
 " You are welcome/' said the Idiot. " Mrs. 
 Smithers, you will also permit me to felici 
 tate you upon this happy event. I, who have 
 so often differed with Mr. Pedagog upon 
 matters of human knowledge, am forced to 
 admit that upon this occasion he has shown 
 such eminently good sense that you are fortu 
 nate, indeed, to have won him/' 
 
 "Again I thank you," said the School- 
 Master. "You are a very sensible person 
 yourself, my dear Idiot; perhaps my fail 
 ure to appreciate you at times in the past 
 has been due to your brilliant qualities, 
 which have so dazzled me that I have been 
 miable to see you as you really are." 
 
 " Here are the chickens," said Mrs. Smith 
 ers. 
 
 "Ah!" ejaculated the Idiot. "What 
 lucky fellows we are, to be sure ! I hope, 
 
98 
 
 Mrs. Smithers, now that Mr. Pedagog has 
 cut us all out, you will at least be a sister to 
 the rest of us, and let us live at home." 
 
 " There is to be no change/' said Mrs. 
 Smithers " at least, I hope not, except that 
 Mr. Pedagog will take a more active part in 
 the management of our home." 
 
 "I don't envy him that," said the Idiot. 
 " We shall be severe critics, and it will be 
 hard work for him to manage affairs better 
 than you did, Mrs. Smithers." 
 
 " Mary, get me a larger cup for the Idiot's 
 coffee," said Mrs. Smithers. 
 
 " Let's all retire from business," suggested 
 the Idiot, after the other guests had ex 
 pressed their satisfaction with the turn af 
 fairs had taken. " Let's retire from business, 
 and change the Smithers Home for Boarders 
 into an Educational Institution." 
 
 " For what purpose ? " queried the Biblio 
 maniac. 
 
 "Everything is so lovely now," explained 
 the Idiot, "that I feel, as though I never 
 wanted to leave the house again, even to win 
 a fortune. If we turn it into a college and 
 instruct youth, we need never go outside the 
 front door excepting for pleasure." 
 
99 
 
 " Where will the money and the instructors 
 come from ? " asked Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 " Money ? From pupils ; and after we get 
 going maybe somebody will endow us. As 
 for instructors, I think we know enough to 
 be instructors ourselves/' replied, the Idiot. 
 " For instance : Pedagog's University. John 
 Pedagog, President; Alonzo B. Whitechoker, 
 Chaplain; Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog, Matron. 
 For Professor of Belles-lettres, the Biblio 
 maniac, assisted by the Poet; Medical Lec 
 tures by Dr. Capsule; Chemistry taught by 
 our genial friend who occasionally imbibes; 
 Chair in General Information, your humble 
 servant. Why, we would be overrun with 
 pupils and money in less than a year." 
 
 " A very good idea," returned Mr. Peda- 
 gog. " I have often thought that a nice lit 
 tle school could be started here to advantage, 
 though I must confess that I had different 
 ideas on the subject of the instructors. You, 
 my dear Idiot, would be a great deal more 
 useful as a Professor Emeritus." 
 
 "H'm!" said the Idiot. "It sounds 
 mighty well I've no doubt I should like it. 
 What is a Professor Emeritus, Mr. Peda- 
 gog?" 
 
100 
 
 " He is a professor who is paid a salary for 
 doing nothing." 
 
 The whole table joined in a laugh, the 
 Idiot included. 
 
 " By Jove ! Mr. Pedagog," he said, as soon 
 as he could speak, "you are just dead right 
 about that. That's the place of places for 
 me. Salary and nothing to do ! Oh, how 
 I'd love it ! " 
 
 The rest of the breakfast was eaten in 
 silence. The spring chickens were too good 
 and too plentiful to admit of much waste of 
 time in conversation. At the conclusion of 
 the meal the Idiot rose from the table, and, 
 after again congratulating Mr. Pedagog and 
 his fiancee, announced that he was going to 
 see his employer. 
 
 " On Sunday ? " queried Mrs. Smithers. 
 
 " Yes ; I want him to write me a recom 
 mendation as a ' man who can do nothing 
 beautifully." 
 
 " And why, pray ? " asked Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 "I'm going to apply to the Trustees of 
 Columbia College the first thing to-morrow 
 morning for an Emeritus Professorship, for 
 if anybody can do nothing and draw money 
 for it gracefully I'm the man. Wall Street 
 
101 
 
 is too wearing on my nerves, and I'm going 
 to leave it/' he replied. 
 
 And in a moment lie was gone. 
 
 " I like him/' said Mrs. Smithers. 
 
 " So do I," said Mr. Pedagog. " He isn't 
 half the idiot he thinks he is." 
 
THE IDIOT 
 
TO 
 
 WILLIAM K. OTIS 
 
THE IDIOT 
 
 FOR some weeks after the happy event 
 which transformed the popular Mrs. Smithers 
 into the charming Mrs. John Pedagog all 
 went well at that lady's select home for sin 
 gle gentlemen. It was only proper that dur 
 ing the honey-moon, at least, of the happy 
 couple hostilities between the Idiot and his 
 fellow-boarders should cease. It was expect 
 ing too much of mankind, however, to look 
 for a continued armistice, and the morning 
 arrived when Nature once more reasserted 
 herself, and trouble began. Just what it was 
 that prompted the remark no one knows, but 
 it happened that the Idiot did say that he 
 thought that, after all, life on a canal-boat 
 had its advantages. Mr. Pedagog, who had 
 come into the dining-room in a slightly irrita 
 ble frame of mind, induced perhaps by Mrs. 
 
108 
 
 Pedagog's insistence that as he was now part 
 proprietor of the house he should be a little 
 more prompt in making his contributions 
 towards its maintenance, chose to take the re 
 mark as implying a reflection upon the way 
 things were managed in the household. 
 
 "Humph!" he said. "I had hoped that 
 your habit of airing your idiotic views had 
 been put aside for once and for all." 
 
 " Very absurd hope, my dear sir," observed 
 the Idiot. " Views that are not aired become 
 musty. Why shouldn't I give them an atmos 
 pheric opportunity once in a while ?" 
 
 '* Because they are the sort of views to 
 which suffocation is the most appropriate 
 end," snapped the School - Master. " Any 
 man who asserts, as you have asserted, that 
 life en a canal-boat has its advantages, ought 
 to go further, and prove his sincerity by liv 
 ing on one." 
 
 " I can't afford it," said the Idiot, meekly. 
 " It isn't cheap by any manner of means. In 
 the first place, you can't live happily on a 
 canal -boat unless you can afford to keep 
 horses. In fact, canal-boat life is a combina 
 tion of the most expensive luxuries, since it 
 combines yachting and driving with domes 
 ticity. Nevertheless, if you will put your 
 
109 
 
 mind on it, you will find that with a canal- 
 boat for your home you can do a great many 
 things that you can't do with a house." 
 
 "I decline to put my mind on a canal- 
 boat," said Mr. Pedagog, sharply, passing his 
 coffee back to Mrs. Pedagog for another 
 lump of sugar, thereby contributing to that 
 good lady's discomfiture, since before their 
 marriage the mere fact that the coffee had 
 been poured by her fair hand had given it all 
 the sweetness it needed ; or at least that was 
 what the School-Master had said, and more 
 than once at that. 
 
 "You are under no obligation to do so," 
 the Idiot returned. " Though if I had a mind 
 like yours I'd put it on a canal-boat and have 
 it towed away somewhere out of sight. These 
 other gentlemen, however, I think, will agree 
 with me when I say that the mere fact that a 
 canal-boat can be moved about the country, 
 and is in no sense a fixti;re anywhere, shows 
 that as a dwelling-place it is superior to a 
 house. Take this house, for instance. This 
 neighborhood used to be the best in town. 
 It is still far from being the worst neighbor 
 hood in town, but it is, as it has been for 
 several years, deteriorating. The establish 
 ment of a Turkish bath on one corner and a 
 
110 
 
 grocery-store on the other has taken away 
 much of that air of refinement which charac 
 terized it when the block was devoted to res 
 idential purposes entirely. Now just suppose 
 for a moment that this street were a canal, 
 and that this house were a canal-boat. The 
 canal could run down as much as it pleased, 
 the neighborhood could deteriorate eternally, 
 but it could not affect the value of this house 
 as the home of refined people as long as it was 
 possible to hitch up a team of horses to the 
 front stoop and tow it into a better locality. 
 I'd like to wager every man at this table that 
 Mrs. Pedagog wouldn't take five minutes to 
 make up her mind to tow this house up to a 
 spot near Central Park, if it were a canal-boat 
 and the streets were water instead of a mix 
 ture of water, sand, and Belgian blocks." 
 
 " No takers," said the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " Tutt-tutt-tutt," ejaculated Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 " You seem to lose sight of another fact," 
 said the Idiot, warming up to his subject. 
 "If man had had the sense in the beginning 
 to adopt the canal-boat system of life, and we 
 were used to that sort of thing, it would not 
 be so hard upon us in summer-time, when we 
 have to live in hotels in order that we and 
 our families may reap the benefits of a period 
 
"THE NUISANCE OP HAVING TO PAY' 
 
Ill 
 
 of country life. We could simply drive off 
 to that section of the country where we de 
 sired to be. Hotels would not be needed if a 
 man could take his house along with him into 
 the fields, and one phase of life which has 
 more bad than good in it would be entirely 
 obliterated. There is nothing more disturb 
 ing to the serenity of a domestic man's mind 
 than the artificial manner of living that pre 
 vails in most summer hotels. The nuisance 
 of having to pay bills every Monday morning 
 under the penalty of losing one's luggage 
 would be obviated, and all the comforts of 
 home would be directly within reach. The 
 trouble incident upon getting the trunks 
 packed and the children ready for a long day's 
 journey by rail, and the fatigue arising from 
 such a journey, would be reduced to a mini 
 mum. The troubles attendant upon going 
 into a far country, and leaving one's house in 
 the sole charge of a lot of servants for a 
 month or two every year, would be done away 
 with entirely; and if at any time it became 
 necessary to discharge one of these servants, 
 she could be put off the boat in an instant, 
 and then the boat could be pushed out into 
 the middle of the canal, so that the dis 
 charged domestic could not possibly get 
 
112 
 
 aboard again and take her revenge by smash 
 ing your crockery and fixtures. That is one 
 of the worst features of living in a stationary 
 house. You are entirely at the mercy of vin 
 dictive servants. They know precisely where 
 you live, and you cannot escape them. They 
 can come back when there is no man around, 
 and raise several varieties of Ned with your 
 wife and children. With a movable house, 
 such as the canal-boat would be, you could 
 always go off and leave your family in per 
 fect safety." 
 
 " How about safety in a storm ?" asked the 
 Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " Safety in a storm ?" echoed the Idiot. 
 " That seems an absurd sort of a question to 
 one who knows anything about canal-boats. I, 
 for one, never heard of a canal-boat being se 
 riously damaged in a storm as long as it was 
 anchored in the canal proper. It certainly 
 isn't any more dangerous to be in a canal- 
 boat in a storm than it is to be in a house 
 that offers resistance to the winds, and is 
 shaken from roof to cellar at every blast. 
 More houses have been blown from their 
 foundations than canal-boats sunk, provided 
 ordinary care has been taken to protect 
 them." 
 
113 
 
 "And you think the canal-boat would be 
 healthy?" asked the Doctor. "How about 
 dampness and all that?" 
 
 " That is a professional question," returned 
 the Idiot, "which I think you could answer 
 better than I. I don't see why a canal-boat 
 shouldn't be healthy, however. The damp 
 ness would not amount to very much. It 
 would be outside of one's dwelling, and not 
 within it, as is the case with so many houses. 
 A canal-boat having no cellar could not have 
 a damp one, and if by some untoward circum 
 stance it should spring a leak, the water could 
 be pumped out at once and the leak plugged 
 up. However this might be, I'll offer another 
 wager to this board on that point, and that is 
 that more people die in houses than on canal- 
 boats." 
 
 "We'd rather give you our money right 
 out," retorted the Doctor. 
 
 " Thank you," said the Idiot. But I don't 
 need money. I don't like money. Money is 
 responsible for more extravagance than any 
 other commodity in existence. Besides, it 
 and I are not intimate enough to get along 
 very well together, and when I have any I 
 immediately do my level best to rid myself 
 of it. But to return to our canal-boat. I 
 
114 
 
 note a look of disapproval in Mr. White- 
 choker's eyes. He doesn't seem to think any 
 more of my scheme than do the rest of you 
 which I regret, since I believe that he would 
 be the gainer if land edifices were supplanted 
 by the canal system as proposed by myself. 
 Take church on a rainy morning, for in 
 stance. A great many people stay at home 
 from church on rainy mornings just because 
 they do not want to venture out in the wet. 
 Suppose we all lived in canal-boats? Would 
 not people be deprived of this flimsy pretext 
 for staying at home if their homes could be 
 towed up to the church door? Or, better yet, 
 granting that the churches followed out the 
 same plan, and were themselves constructed 
 like canal-boats, how easy it would be for the 
 sexton to drive the church around the town 
 and collect the absentees. In the same man 
 ner it would be glorious for men like our 
 selves, who have to go to their daily toil. For 
 a consideration, Mrs. Pedagog could have us 
 driven to our various places of business every 
 morning, returning for us in the evening. 
 Think how fine it would be for me, for in 
 stance, instead of having to come home every 
 night in an overcrowded elevated train or on 
 a cable-car, to have the office-boy come and 
 
115 
 
 announce, 'Mrs. Pedagog's Select Home for 
 Gentlemen is at the door, Mr. Idiot.' I could 
 step right out of my office into my charming 
 little bedroom up in the bow, and the time 
 usually expended on the cars could be de 
 voted to dressing for tea. Then we could 
 stop in at the court-house for our legal friend; 
 and as for Doctor Capsule, wouldn't he revel 
 in driving this boarding-house about town on 
 his daily rounds among his patients?" 
 
 " What would become of my office hours ?" 
 asked the Doctor. " If this house were whirl 
 ing giddily all about the city from morning 
 until night, I don't know what would become 
 of my office patients." 
 
 " They might die a little sooner or live a 
 little longer, that is all," said the Idiot. " If 
 they weren't able to find the house at all, 
 however, I think it would be better for us, for 
 much as I admire you, Doctor, I think your 
 office hours are a nuisance to the rest of us. 
 I had to elbow my way out of the house this 
 morning between a double line of sufferers 
 from mumps and influenza, and other pleas 
 ingly afflicted patients of yours, and I didn't 
 like it very much." 
 
 " I don't believe they liked it much either," 
 returned the Doctor. "One man with a 
 11 
 
116 
 
 sprained ankle told me about you. You 
 shoved him in passing." 
 
 " Well, you can apologize to him in my be 
 half," returned the Idiot; "but you might 
 add that he must expect very much the same 
 treatment whenever he and a boy with mumps 
 stand between me and the door. Sprained 
 ankles aren't contagious, and I preferred shov 
 ing him to the other alternative." 
 
 The Doctor was silent, and the Idiot rose to 
 go. " Where will the house be this evening 
 about six-thirty, Mrs. Pedagog?" he asked, as 
 he pushed his chair back from the table. 
 
 " Where? Why, here, of course," returned 
 the landlady. 
 
 " Why, yes of course," observed the Idiot, 
 with an impatient gesture. "Plow foolish 
 of me ! I've really been so wrapped up in 
 my canal-boat ideal that I came to believe 
 that it might possibly be real and not a 
 dream, after all. I almost believed that per 
 haps I should find that the house had been 
 towed somewhere up into Westchester Coun 
 ty on my return, so that we might all escape 
 the city's tax on personal property, which 
 I am told is unusually high this year." 
 
 With which sally the Idiot kissed his hand 
 to Mr. Pedagog aud retired from the scene. 
 
II 
 
 "LET'S write a book," suggested the Idiot, 
 as he took his place at the board and unfolded 
 his napkin. 
 
 " What about ?" asked the Doctor, with a 
 smile at the idea of the Idiot's thinking of 
 embarking on literary pursuits. 
 
 "About four hundred pages long," said the 
 Idiot. " I feel inspired." 
 
 "You are inspired," said the School-Master. 
 "In your way you are a genius. I really 
 never heard of such a variegated Idiot as you 
 are in all my experience, and that means a 
 great deal, I can tell you, for in the course of 
 my career as an instructor of youth I have 
 encountered many idiots." 
 
 "Were they idiots before or after having 
 drank at the fount of your learning?" asked 
 the Idiot, placidly. 
 
 Mr. Pedagog glared, and the Idiot was ap 
 parently satisfied. To make Mr. Pedagog 
 
118 
 
 glare appeared to be one of the chiefest of 
 his ambitions. 
 
 "You will kindly remember, Mr. Idiot," 
 said Mrs. Pedagog at this point, " that Mr. 
 Pedagog is my husband, and such insinua 
 tions at my table are distinctly out of place." 
 
 "I ask your pardon, Mrs. Pedagog," re 
 joined the offender, meekly. " Nevertheless, 
 as apart from the question in hand as to 
 whether Mr. Pedagog inspires idiocy or not, 
 I should like to get the views of this gather 
 ing on the point you make regarding the 
 table. Ts this your table ? Is it not rather 
 the table of those who sit about it to regale 
 
 O 
 
 their inner man with the good things under 
 which I remember once or twice in my life to 
 have heard it groan ? To my mind, the latter 
 is the truth. It is our table, because we buy 
 it, and I am forced to believe that some of us 
 pay for it. I am prepared to admit that if 
 Mr. Brief, for instance, is delinquent in his 
 weekly payments, his interest in the table re 
 verts to you until he shall have liquidated, 
 and he is not privileged to say a word that you 
 do not approve of ; but I, for instance, who 
 since January 1st have been compelled to pay 
 in advance, am at least sole lessee, and for 
 the time being proprietor of the portion for 
 
119 
 
 which I have paid. You have sold it to me, 
 I have entered into possession, and while in 
 possession, as a matter of right and not on 
 sufferance, haven't I the privilege of freedom 
 of speech ?" 
 
 "You certainly exercise the privilege 
 whether you have it or not," snapped Mr. 
 Pedagog. 
 
 " Well, I believe in exercise," said the 
 Idiot. " Exercise brings strength, and if ex 
 ercising the privilege is going to strengthen 
 it, exercise it I shall, if I have to hire a gym 
 nasium for the purpose. But to return to 
 Mrs. Pedagog's remark. It brings up another 
 question that has more or less interested me. 
 Because Mrs. Smithers married Mr. Pedagog, 
 do we lose all of our rights in Mr. Pedagog ? 
 Before the happy event that reduced our 
 number from ten to nine " 
 
 . " We are still ten, are we not ?" asked Mr. 
 Whitechoker, counting the guests. 
 
 "Not if Mr. Pedagog and the late Mrs. 
 Smithers have become one," said the Idiot. 
 "But, as I was saying, before the happy 
 event that reduced our number from ten to 
 nine we were permitted to address our friend 
 Pedagog in any terms we saw fit, and when 
 ever he became sufficiently interested to in- 
 
120 
 
 dulge in repartee we were privileged to re 
 turn it. Have we relinquished that privilege? 
 I don't remember to have done so." 
 
 " It's a question worthy of your giant in 
 tellect," said Mr. Pedagog, scornfully. "For 
 myself, I do not at all object to anything you 
 may choose to say to me or of me. Your 
 assaults are to me as water is to a duck's 
 back." 
 
 "I am sorry," said the Idiot. "I hate 
 family disagreements, and here we have Mrs. 
 Pedagog taking one side and Mr. Ped 
 agog the other. But whatever decision 
 may ultimately be reached, of one thing Mrs. 
 Pedagog must be assured. I on principle 
 side against Mr. Pedagog, and if it be the 
 wish of my good landlady that I shall refrain 
 from playing intellectual battledore and shut 
 tlecock with her husband, whom we all re 
 vere, I certainly shall refrain. Hereafter if 
 I indulge in anything that in any sense re 
 sembles repartee with our landlord, I wish it 
 distinctly understood that an apology goes 
 with it." 
 
 " That's all right, my boy," said the School- 
 Master. " You mean well. You are a little 
 new, that's all, and we all understand you." 
 
 "I don't understand him," growled the 
 
121 
 
 Doctor, still smarting under the recollection 
 of former breakfast-table discomfitures. " I 
 wish we could get him translated." 
 
 " If you prescribed for me once or twice I 
 think it likely I should be translated in 
 short order," retorted the Idiot. " I wonder 
 how I'd go translated into French ?" 
 
 "You couldn't be expressed in French," 
 put in the Lawyer. " It would take some 
 barbarian tongue to do you justice." 
 
 " Very well," said the Idiot. " Proceed. 
 Do me justice." 
 
 " I can't begin to," said Mr. Brief, angrily. 
 
 " That's what I thought," said the Idiot. 
 " That's the reason why you always do me 
 such great injustice. You lawyers always 
 have to be doing something, even if it is only 
 holding down a chair so that it won't blow 
 out of your office window. If you haven't 
 any justice to mete out, you take another 
 tack and dispense injustice with lavish hand. 
 However, I'll forgive you if you'll tell me 
 one thing. What's libel, Mr. Brief ?" 
 
 "None of your business," growled the 
 Lawyer. 
 
 " A very good general definition," said the 
 Idiot, approvingly. " If there's any business 
 in the world that I should hate to have 
 
132 
 
 known as mine it is that of libel. I think, 
 however, your definition is not definite. 
 What I wanted to know was just how far I 
 could go with remarks at this table and be 
 safe from prosecution." 
 
 "Nobody would ever prosecute you, for two 
 reasons," said the lawyer. "In a civil action 
 for money damages a verdict against you for 
 ten cents wouldn't be worth a rap, because 
 the chances are you couldn't pay. In a crim 
 inal action your conviction would be a bad 
 thing, because you would be likely to prove a 
 corrupting influence in any jail in creation. 
 Besides, you'd be safe before a jury, anyhow. 
 You are just the sort of idiot that the intel 
 ligent jurors of to-day admire, and they'd 
 acquit you of any crime. A man has a right 
 to a trial at the hands of a jury of his peers. 
 I don't think even in a jury-box twelve 
 idiots equal to yourself could be found, so 
 don't worry." 
 
 "Thanks. Have a cigarette?" said the 
 Idiot, tossing one over to the Lawyer. " It's 
 all I have. If I had a half-dollar I should pay 
 you for your opinion ; but since I haven't, I 
 offer you my all. The temperature of my 
 coffee seems to have fallen, Mrs. Pedagog. 
 Will you kindly let me have another cup ?" 
 
M CERTAINLY. I ASKED FOR ANOTHER CUP " 
 
123 
 
 " Certainly, said Mrs. Pedagog. " Mary, 
 get the Idiot another cup." 
 
 Mary did as she was told, placing the empty 
 bit of china at Mrs. Pedagog's side. 
 
 "It is for the Idiot, Mary," said Mrs. Ped 
 agog, coldly. " Take it to him." 
 
 " Empty, ma'am ?" asked the maid. 
 
 " Certainly, Mary," said the Idiot, perceiv 
 ing Mrs. Pedagog's point. " I asked for an 
 other cup, not for more coffee." 
 
 Mrs. Pedagog smiled quietly at her own 
 joke. At hair-splitting she could give the 
 Idiot points. 
 
 "I am surprised that Mary should have 
 thought I wanted more coffee," continued the 
 Idiot, in an aggrieved tone. " It shows that 
 she too thinks me out of my mind." 
 
 " You are not out of your mind," said the 
 Bibliomaniac. " It would be a good thing if 
 you were. In replenishing your mental sup 
 ply you might have the luck to get better 
 quality." 
 
 " I probably should have the luck," said the 
 Idiot. " I have had a great store of it in my 
 life. From the very start I have had luck. 
 When I think that I was born myself, and 
 not you, I feel as if I had had more than my 
 share of good-fortune more luck than the 
 
124 
 
 law allows. How much luck does the law 
 allow, Mr. Brief ?" 
 
 " Bosh !" said Mr. Brief, with a scornful 
 wave of his hand, as if he were ridding him 
 self of a troublesome gnat. "Don't bother 
 me with such mind-withering questions." 
 
 " All right," said the Idiot. " I'll ask you 
 an easier one. Why does not the world rec 
 ognize matrimony?" 
 
 Mr. Whitechoker started. Here, indeed, 
 was a novel proposition. 
 
 " I I must confess," said he, " that of 
 all the idiotic questions I er I have ever 
 had the honor of hearing asked that takes 
 the" 
 
 " Cake ?" suggested the Idiot. 
 
 " palm !" said Mr. Whitechoker, severely. 
 
 " Well, perhaps so," said the Idiot. " But 
 matrimony is the science, or the art, or what 
 ever you call it, of making two people one, 
 is it not ?" 
 
 "It certainly is," said Mr. Whitechoker. 
 " But what of it ?" 
 
 " The world does not recognize the unity," 
 said the Idiot. " Take our good proprietors, 
 for instance. They were made one by your 
 self, Mr. Whitechoker. I had the pleasure of 
 being an usher at the ceremony, yielding the 
 
'DEMANDS TICKETS FOR TWO' 
 
125 
 
 position of best man gracefully, as is my 
 wont, to the Bibliomaniac. He was best 
 man, but not the better man, by a simple 
 process of reasoning. Now no one at this 
 board disputes that Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog are 
 one, but how about the world? Mr. Peda 
 gog takes Mrs. Pedagog to a concert. Are 
 they one there ?" 
 
 " Why not ?" asked Mr. Brief. 
 
 " That's what I want to know why not ? 
 The world, as represented by the ticket-taker 
 at the door, says they are not or implies 
 that they are not, by demanding tickets for 
 two. They attempt to travel out to Niagara 
 Falls. The railroad people charge them two 
 fares ; the hackman charges them two fares ; 
 the hotel bills are made out for two people. 
 It is the same wherever they go in the 
 world, and I regret to say that even in our 
 own home there is a disposition to regard 
 them as two. When I spoke of there being 
 nine persons here instead of ten, Mr. White- 
 choker himself disputed my point and yet it 
 was not so much his fault as the fault of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Pedagog themselves. Mrs. Pedagog 
 seems to cast doubt upon the unity by provid 
 ing two separate chairs for the two halves 
 that make up the charming entirety. Two 
 
126 
 
 cups are provided for their coffee. Two 
 forks, two knives, two spoons, two portions 
 of all the delicacies of the season which are 
 lavished upon us out of season generally 
 after it fall to their lot. They do not ob 
 ject to being called a happy couple, when 
 they should be known as a happy single. 
 Now what I want to know is why the world 
 does not accept the shrinkage which has been 
 pronounced valid by the church and is recog 
 nized by the individual ? Can any one here 
 tell me that ?" 
 
 No one could, apparently. At least no one 
 endeavored to. The Idiot looked inquiring 
 ly at all, and then, receiving no reply to his 
 question, he rose from the table. 
 
 " I think," he said, as he started to leave 
 the room " I think we ought to write that 
 book. If we made it up of the things you 
 people don't know, it would be one of the 
 greatest books of the century. At any rate, 
 it would be great enough in bulk to fill the 
 biggest library in America." 
 
in 
 
 "I WISH I were beginning life all over 
 again," said the Idiot one spring morning, 
 as he took his accustomed place at Mrs. 
 Pedagog's table. 
 
 " I wish you were," said Mr. Pedagog from 
 behind his newspaper. "Then your parents 
 would have you shut up in a nursery, and it 
 is even conceivable that you would be re 
 ceiving those disciplinary attentions with a 
 slipper that you seem to me so frequently to 
 deserve, were you at this present moment in 
 the nursery stage of your development." 
 
 "My!" ejaculated the Idiot. "What a 
 wonder you are, Mr. Pedagog ! It is a good 
 thing you are not a justice in a criminal 
 court." 
 
 "And what, may I venture to ask," said 
 Mr. Pedagog, glancing at the Idiot over his 
 spectacles " what has given rise to that ex 
 traordinary remark, the connection of which 
 
128 
 
 with anything that has been said or done 
 this morning is distinctly not apparent ?" 
 
 " I only meant that a man who was so 
 given over to long sentences as you are 
 would probably make too severe a judge in 
 a criminal court," replied the Idiot, meekly. 
 " Do you make use of the same phraseology 
 in the class-room that you dazzle us with, I 
 should like to know ?" 
 
 " And why not, pray ?" said Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 " No special reason," said the Idiot ; " only 
 it does seem to me that an instructor of 
 youth ought to be more careful in his choice 
 of adverbs than you appear to be. Of course 
 Doctor Bolus here is under no obligation to 
 speak more grammatically or correctly than 
 he does. People call him in to pi'escribe, not 
 to indulge in rhetorical periods, and he can 
 write his prescriptions in a sort of intuitive 
 Latin and nobody be the wiser, but you, who 
 are said to be sowing the seeds of knowledge 
 in the brain of youth, should be more careful." 
 
 " Hear the grammarian talk !" returned Mr. 
 Pedagog. "Listen to this embryonic Sam- 
 uel Johnson the Second. What have I said 
 that so offends the linguistic taste of Lindley 
 Murray, Jun. ?" 
 
 "Nothing," returned the Idiot. "I can- 
 
129 
 
 not say that you have said anything. I never 
 heard you say anything in my life ; but while 
 you can no doubt find good authority for 
 making use of the words 'distinctly not ap 
 parent,' you ought not to throw such phrases 
 around carelessly. The thing which is dis 
 tinct is apparent, therefore to say ' distinctly 
 not apparent ' to a mind that is not given to 
 analysis sounds strange. You might as well 
 say of a beautiful girl that she is plainly 
 pretty, meaning of course that she is evident 
 ly pretty ; but those who are unacquainted 
 with the idiomatic peculiarities of your speech 
 might ask you if you meant that she was 
 pretty in a plain sort of way. Suppose, too, 
 you were writing a novel, and, in a desire to 
 give your reader a fair idea of the personal 
 appearance of a homely but good creature, 
 you should say, 'It cannot be denied that 
 Rosamond Follansbee was pretty plain ?' It 
 wouldn't take a very grave error of the types 
 to change your entire meaning. To save a 
 line on a page, for instance, it might become 
 necessary to eliminate a single w r ord ; and if 
 that word should chance to be the word 
 * plain' in the sentence I have given, your 
 homely but good person would be set down 
 as being undeniably pretty. Which shows, 
 
130 
 
 it seems to me, that too great care cannot be 
 exercised in the making of selections from 
 our vocabu " 
 
 " You are the worst I ever knew !" snapped 
 Mr. Fed agog. 
 
 "Which only proves," observed the Idiot, 
 " that you have not heeded the Scriptural 
 injunction that you should know thyself. 
 Are those buckwheat cakes or doilies ?" 
 
 Whether the question was heard or not is 
 not known. It certainly was not answered, 
 and silence reigned for a few minutes. Fi 
 nally Mrs. Pedagog spoke, and in the man 
 ner of one who was somewhat embarrassed. 
 "I am in an embarrassing position," said 
 she. 
 
 " Good !" said the Idiot, sotto-voce, to the 
 genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed. 
 " There is hope for the landlady yet. If she 
 can be embarrassed she is still human a con 
 dition I was beginning to think she wotted 
 not of." 
 
 " She whatted what ?" queried the genial 
 gentleman, not quite catching the Idiot's 
 words. 
 
 " Never mind," returned the Idiot. " Let's 
 hear how she ever came to be embarrassed." 
 
 "I have had an application for my first- 
 
131 
 
 floor suite, and I don't know whether I ought 
 to accept it or not," said the landlady. 
 
 "She has a conscience, too," whispered 
 the Idiot ; and then he added, aloud, " And 
 wherein lies the difficulty, Mrs. Pedagog ?" 
 
 " The applicant is an actor ; Junius Brutus 
 Davenport is his name." 
 
 " A tragedian or a comedian ?" asked the 
 Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " Or first walking gentleman, who knows 
 every railroad tie in the country ?" put in the 
 Idiot. 
 
 " That I do not know," returned the land 
 lady. " His name sounds familiar enough, 
 though. I thought perhaps some of you 
 gentlemen might know of him." 
 
 " I have heard of Junius Brutus," observed 
 the Doctor, chuckling slightly at his own 
 humor, " and I've heard of Davenport, but 
 Junius Brutus Davenport is a combination 
 with which I am not familiar." 
 
 " Well, I can't see why it should make any 
 difference whether the man is a tragedian, or 
 a comedian, or a familiar figure to railroad 
 men," said Mr. Whitechoker, firmly. " In any 
 event, he would be an extremely objec " 
 
 " It makes a great deal of difference," said 
 the Idiot. " I've met tragedians, and I've met 
 
132 
 
 comedians, and I've met New York Central 
 stars, and I can assure you they each repre 
 sent a distinct type. The tragedians, as a 
 rule, are quiet meek individuals, with soft 
 low voices, in private life. They are more 
 timid than otherwise, though essentially amia 
 ble. I knew a tragedian once who, after kill 
 ing seventeen Indians, a road - agent, and a 
 gross of cowboys between eight and ten p. M. 
 every night for sixteen weeks, working six 
 nights a week, was afraid of a mild little 
 soft-shell crab that lay defenceless on a plate 
 before him on the evening of the seventh 
 night of the last week. Tragedians make 
 agreeable companions, I can tell you ; and if 
 J. Brutus Davenport is a tragedian, I think 
 Mrs. Pedagog would do well to let him have 
 the suite, provided, of course, that he pays 
 for it in advance." 
 
 " I was about to observe, when our friend 
 interrupted me," said Mr. Whitechoker, with 
 dignity, " that in any event an actor at this 
 board would be to me an extremely objec " 
 
 "Now the comedians," resumed the Idiot, 
 ignoring Mr. Whitechoker's remark "the co 
 medians are very different. They are twice as 
 bloodthirsty as the murderers of the drama, 
 and, worse than that, they are given to re- 
 
"THEY ARE GIVEN TO REHEARSING AT ALL HOURS 
 
133 
 
 hearsing at all hours of the day and night. 
 A tragedian is a hard character only on the 
 stage, but the comedian is the comedian al 
 ways. If we had one of those fellows in our 
 midst, it would not be very long before we 
 became part of the drama ourselves. Mrs. 
 Pedagog would find herself embarrassed once 
 an hour, instead of, as at present, once a cen 
 tury. Mr. Whitechoker would hear of him 
 self as having appeared by proxy in a roaring 
 farce before our comedian had been with 
 us two months. The wise sayings of our 
 friend the School-Master would be spoken 
 nightly from the stage, to the immense de 
 light of the gallery gods, and to the edifica 
 tion of the orchestra circle, who would won 
 der how so much information could have got 
 into the world and they not know it before. 
 The out-of-town papers would literally teem 
 with witty extracts from our comedian's plays, 
 which we should immediately recognize as 
 the dicta of my poor self." 
 
 "All of which." put in Mr. Whitechoker, 
 "but proves the truth of my assertion that 
 such a person would be an extremely objec " 
 
 " Then, as I said before," continued the 
 Idiot, " he is continually rehearsing, and his 
 objectionableness as a fellow-boarder would 
 
134 
 
 be greater or less, according to his play. If 
 he were impersonating a shiftless wanderer, 
 who shows remarkable bravery at a hotel fire, 
 we should have to be prepared at any time 
 to hear the fire-engines rushing up to the 
 front door, and to see our comedian scaling 
 the fire-escape with Mrs. Pedagog and her 
 account-books in his arms, simply in the line 
 of rehearsal. If he were impersonating a de 
 tective after a criminal masquerading as a 
 good citizen, the School -Master would be 
 startled some night by a hoarse voice at his 
 key-hole exclaiming : ' Ha ! ha ! I have him 
 now. There is no escape save by the back 
 window, and that's so covered o'er with dust 
 'twere suffocation sure to try it.' I hesitate 
 to say what would happen if he were a tank 
 comedian." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Mr. Whitechoker, with a 
 trifle more impatience than was compatible 
 with his calling " perhaps you will hesitate 
 long enough for me to state what I have 
 been trying to state ever since this soliloquy 
 of yours began that in any event, whether 
 this person be a tragedian, or a comedian, or 
 a walking gentleman, or a riding gentleman 
 in a circus, I object to his being admitted to 
 this circle, and I deem it well to say right 
 
' HA ! HA ! I HATE HIM NOW !' " 
 
135 
 
 here that as he comes in at the front door I 
 go out at the back. As a clergyman, I do 
 not approve of the stage." 
 
 " That ought to settle it," said the Idiot. 
 " Mr. Whitechoker is too good a friend to 
 us all here for us to compel him to go out 
 of that back door into the rather limited 
 market- garden Mrs. Pedagog keeps in the 
 yard. My indirect plea for the admission 
 of Mr. Junius Brutus Davenport was based 
 entirely upon my desire to see this circle 
 completed or nearer completion than it is 
 at present. We have all the professions 
 represented here but the stage, and why ex 
 clude it, granting that no one objects ? The 
 men whose lives are given over to the amuse 
 ment of mankind, and who are willing to 
 place themselves in the most outrageous sit 
 uations night after night in order that we 
 may for the time being seem to be lifted out 
 of the unpleasant situations into which we 
 have got ourselves, are in my opinion doing 
 a noble work. The theatre enables us to woo 
 forgetfulness of self successfully for a few 
 brief hours, and I have seen the time when 
 an hour or two of relief from actual cares 
 has resulted in great good. Nevertheless, 
 the gentleman is not elected ; and if Mrs. 
 
136 
 
 Pedagog will kindly refill my cup, I will ask 
 you to join me in draining a toast to the 
 health of the pastor of this flock, whose con 
 science, paradoxical as it may seem, is the 
 most frequently worn and yet the least thread 
 bare of the consciences represented at this 
 table." 
 
 This easy settlement of her difficulty was 
 so pleasing to Mrs. Pedagog that the Idiot's 
 request was graciously acceded to, and Mr. 
 Whitechoker's health was drank in coffee, 
 after which the Idiot requested the genial 
 gentleman who occasionally imbibed to join 
 him privately in eating buckwheat cakes to 
 the health of Mr. Davenport. 
 
 " I haven't any doubt that he is worthy of 
 the attention," he said ; " and if you will lend 
 me the money to buy the tickets, I'll take you 
 around to the Criterion to-night, where he is 
 playing. I don't know whether he plays 
 Hamlet or A Hole in the Roof; but, at any 
 rate, we can have a good time between the 
 acts." 
 
IV 
 
 " I SEE the men are at work on the pave 
 ments this morning," said the School-Master, 
 gazing out through the window at a number 
 of laborers at work in the street. 
 
 "Yes," said the Idiot, calmly, "and I think 
 Mrs. Pedagog ought to sue the Department 
 of Public Works for libel. If she hasn't a 
 case no maligned person ever had." 
 
 " What are you saying, sir ?" queried the 
 landlady, innocently. 
 
 "I say," returned the Idiot, pointing out 
 into the street, "that you ought to sue the De 
 partment of Public Works for libel. They've 
 got their sign right up against your house. 
 No Thorough Fare is what it says. That's 
 libel, isn't it, Mr. Brief ?" 
 
 " It is certainly a fatal criticism of a board 
 ing-house," observed Mr. Brief, with a twinkle 
 in his eye, "but Mrs. Pedagog could hardly 
 secure damages on that score." 
 
138 
 
 "I don't know about that," returned the 
 Idiot. " As I understand it, it is an old max 
 im of the law that the greater the truth the 
 greater the libel. Mrs. Pedagog ought to re 
 ceive a million By-the-way, what have we 
 this morning ?" 
 
 "We have steak and fried potatoes, sir," 
 replied Mrs. Pedagog, frigidly. " And I de 
 sire to add, that one who criticises the table as 
 much as you do would do well to get his 
 meals outside." 
 
 1 " That, Mrs. Pedagog, is not the point. 
 The difficulty I find here lies in getting my 
 meals inside," said the Idiot. 
 
 "Mary, you may bring in the mush," ob 
 served Mrs. Pedagog, pursing her lips, as she 
 always did when she wished to show that she 
 was offended. 
 
 " Yes, Mary," put in the School - Master ; 
 " let us have the mush as quickly as possible 
 and may it not be quite such mushy mush 
 as the remarks we have just been favored 
 with by our talented friend the Idiot." 
 
 "You overwhelm me with your compli 
 ments, Mr. Pedagog," replied the Idiot, cheer 
 fully. "A flatterer like you should live in a 
 flat." 
 
 " Has your friend completed his article on 
 
139 
 
 old jokes yet?" queried the Bibliomaniac, 
 with a smile and some apparent irrelevance. 
 
 "Yes and no," said the Idiot. "He has 
 completed his labors on it by giving it up. 
 He is a very thorough sort of a fellow, and 
 he intended to make the article comprehen 
 sive, but he found he couldn't, because, judg 
 ing from comments of men like you, for in 
 stance, he was forced to conclude that there 
 never was a new joke. But, as I was saying 
 the other morning " 
 
 " Do you really remember what you say ?" 
 sneered Mr. Pedagog. "You must have a 
 great memory for trifles." 
 
 "Sir, I shall never forget you," said the 
 Idiot. " But to revert to what I was saying 
 the other morning, I'd like to begin life all 
 over again, so that I could prepare myself 
 for the profession of architecture. It's the 
 greatest profession in the world, and one 
 which is surest to bring immortality to its 
 successful follower. A man may write a 
 splendid book, and become a great man for a 
 while and within certain limits, but the chances 
 are that some other man will come along 
 later and supplant him. Then the book's sale 
 will die out after a time, and with this will 
 come a diminution of its author's reputa- 
 
140 
 
 tion, in extent anyway. An actor or a great 
 preacher becomes only a name after his death, 
 but the architect who builds a cathedral or 
 a fine public building really erects a monu 
 ment to his own memory." 
 
 " He does if he can build it so that it will 
 stay up," said the Bibliomaniac. "I think 
 you, however, are better off as you are. If 
 you had a more extended reputation or a last 
 ing name you would probably be locked up 
 in some retreat ; or if you were not, posterity 
 would want to know why." 
 
 "I am locked up in a retreat of Nature's 
 making," said the Idiot, with a sigh. "Nat 
 ure has set around me certain limitations 
 which, while they are not material, might as 
 well be so as far as my ability to soar above 
 them is concerned and it's well she has. If 
 it were otherwise, my life would not be safe 
 or bearable in this company. As it is, I am 
 happy and not at all afraid of the effects 
 your jealousy of me might entail if I were 
 any better than the rest of you." 
 
 " I like that," said Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 "I thought you would," said the Idiot. 
 " That's why I said it. I aim to please, and 
 for once seem to have hit the bull's-eye. Mary, 
 kindly break open this biscuit for me." 
 
141 
 
 " Have you ideas on the subject of archi 
 tecture that you so desire to become an arch 
 itect?" queried Mr. Whitechoker, who was 
 always full of sympathy for aspiring nat 
 ures. 
 
 "A few," said the Idiot. 
 
 Mr. Pedagog laughed outright. 
 
 " Let's test his ideas," he said, in an amused 
 way. "Take a cathedral, for instance. Sup 
 pose, Mr. Idiot, a man should come to you 
 and say : ' Idiot, we have a fund of $800,000 
 in our hands, actual cash. We think of build 
 ing a cathedral, and we think of employing 
 you to draw up our plans. Give us some idea 
 of what we should do.' Do you mean to tell 
 me that you could say anything reasonable 
 or intelligent to that man ?" 
 
 "Well, that depends upon what you call 
 reasonable and intelligent. I have never been 
 able to find out what you mean by those 
 terms," the Idiot answered, slowly. " But I 
 could tell him something that I consider rea 
 sonable and intelligent." 
 
 " From your own point of view, then, as to 
 reasonableness and intelligence, what should 
 you say to him ?" 
 
 "I'd make him out a plan providing for 
 the investment of his $800,000 in five-per- 
 
142 
 
 cent, gold bonds, which would bring him in 
 an income of $40,000 a year ; after which 
 I should call his attention to the fact that 
 $40,000 a year would enable him to take 10,- 
 
 000 poor children out of this sweltering city 
 into the country, to romp and drink fresh 
 milk and eat wholesome food for two weeks 
 ever} T summer from now until the end of time, 
 which would build up a human structure that 
 might be of more benefit to the world than 
 any pile of bricks, marble, and wrought -iron 
 
 1 or any other architect could conceive of," 
 said the Idiot. " The structure would stand 
 up, too." 
 
 " You call that architecture, do you ?" said 
 Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 "Yes," said the Idiot, "of the renaissance 
 order. But that, of course, you term idi 
 ocy and maybe it is. I like to be that 
 kind of an idiot. I do not claim to be able 
 to build a cathedral, howevei*. I don't sup 
 pose I could even build a boarding-house like 
 this, but what I should like to do in archi 
 tecture would be to put up a $5000 dwelling- 
 house for $5000. That's a thing that has 
 never been done, and I think I might be able 
 to do it. If I did, I'd patent the plan and 
 make a fortune. Then I should like to know 
 
143 
 
 enough about the science of planning a build 
 ing to find out whether my model hotel is 
 practicable or not." 
 
 "You have a model hotel in your mind, 
 eh ?" said the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " It must be a very small hotel if it's in his 
 mind," said the Doctor. 
 
 " That's tantamount to saying that it isn't 
 anywhere," said Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 "Well, it's a great hotel just the same," 
 said the Idiot. "Although I presume it would 
 be expensive to build. It would have mov 
 able rooms, in the first place. Each room 
 would be constructed like an elevator, with 
 appliances at hand for moving it up and 
 down. The great thing about this would be 
 that persons could have a room on any floor 
 they wanted it, so long as they got the room 
 in the beginning. A second advantage would 
 lie in the fact, that if you were sleeping in a 
 room next door to another in which there was 
 a crying baby, you could pull the rope and 
 go up two or three flights until you were free 
 from the noise. Then in case of fire the room 
 in which the fire started could be lowered 
 into a sliding tank large enough to immerse 
 the whole thing in, which I should have con 
 structed in the cellar. If the whole building 
 
144 
 
 were to catch fire, there would be no loss of 
 life, because all the rooms could be lowered 
 to the ground-floor, and the occupants could 
 step right out upon solid ground. Then 
 again, if you were down on the ground-floor, 
 and desired to get an extended view of the 
 surrounding country, it would be easy to 
 raise your room to the desired elevation. 
 Why, there's no end to the advantages to be 
 gained from such an arrangement." 
 
 "It's a fine idea," said Mr. Pedagog, "and 
 one worthy of your mammoth intellect. It 
 couldn't possibly cost more than a million of 
 dollars to erect such a hotel, could it ?" 
 
 " No," said the Idiot. "And that is cheap 
 alongside some of the hotels they are putting 
 up nowadays." 
 
 "It could be built on less than four hun 
 dred acres of ground, too, I presume ?" said 
 the Bibliomaniac, with a wink at the Doctor. 
 
 " Certainly," said the Idiot, meekly. 
 
 " And if anybody fell sick in one of the 
 rooms," said the Doctor, " and needed a 
 change of air, you could have a tower over 
 each, I suppose, so that the room could be el 
 evated high enough to secure the different 
 quality in the ether ?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said the Idiot. "Although 
 
THEY DEPARTED 
 
145 
 
 that would add materially to the expense. A 
 scarlet-fever patient, however, in a hotel like 
 that could very easily be isolated from the 
 rest of the house by the maintenance gf what 
 might be called the hospital floor." 
 
 " Superb !" said the Doctor. " I wonder 
 you haven't spoken to some architectural 
 friend about it." 
 
 " I have," said the Idiot. " You must re 
 member that young fellow with a black mus 
 tache I had here to dinner last Saturday 
 night." 
 
 " Yes, I remember him," said the Doctor. 
 " Is he an architect ?" 
 
 "He is and a good one. He can take a 
 brown-stone dwelling and turn it into a 
 colonial mansion with a pot of yellow paint. 
 He's a wonder. I submitted the idea to 
 him." 
 
 " And what was his verdict ?" 
 
 " I don't like to say," said the Idiot, blush 
 ing a little. 
 
 "Ha! ha!" laughed Mr. Pedagog. "I 
 shouldn't think you would like to say. I 
 guess we know what he said." 
 
 " I doubt it," said the Idiot ; " but if you 
 guess right, I'll tell you." 
 
 "He said you had better go and live in a 
 
146 
 
 lunatic asylum," said Mr. Pedagog, with a 
 chuckle. 
 
 " Not he," returned the Idiot, nibbling at 
 his biscuit. " On the contrary. He advised 
 me to stop living in one. He said contact 
 with the rest of you was affecting my brain." 
 
 This time Mr. Pedagog did not laugh, but 
 mistaking his coffee-cup for a piece of toast, 
 bit a small section out of its rim ; and in the 
 midst of Mrs. Pedagog's expostulation, which 
 followed the School-Master's careless error, 
 the Idiot and the Genial Old Gentleman de 
 parted, with smiles on their faces which were 
 almost visible at the back of their respective 
 necks. 
 
" HULLO !" said the Idiot, as he began hia 
 breakfast. "This isn't Friday morning, is it? 
 I thought it was Tuesday." 
 
 " So it is Tuesday," put in the School-Master. 
 
 " Then this fish is a little extra treat, is it ?" 
 observed the Idiot, turning with a smile to 
 the landlady. 
 
 " Fish ? That isn't fish, sir," returned the 
 good lady. "That is liver." 
 
 " Oh, is it ?" said the Idiot, apologetically. 
 "Excuse me, my dear Mrs. Pedagog. I 
 thought from its resistance that it was fried 
 sole. Have you a hatchet handy?" he add 
 ed, turning to the maid. 
 
 " My piece is tender enough. I can't see 
 what you want," said the School - Master, 
 coldly. 
 
 "I'd like your piece," replied the Idiot, 
 suavely. " That is, if it really is tender 
 enough." 
 
148 
 
 "Don't pay any attention to him, my clear," 
 said the School-Master to the landlady, whose 
 ire was so very much aroused that she was 
 about to make known her sentiments on cer 
 tain subjects. 
 
 "No, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot, "don't 
 pay any attention to me, I beg of you. Any 
 thing that could add to the jealousy of Mr. 
 Pedagog would redound to the discomfort of 
 all of us. Besides, I really do not object to the 
 liver. I need not eat it. And as for staying my 
 appetite, I always stop on my w r ay down-town 
 after breakfast for a bite or two anyhow." 
 
 There was silence for a moment. 
 
 "I wonder why it is," began the Idiot, 
 after tasting his coffee " I wonder why it 
 is Friday is fish-day all over the world, any 
 how ? Do you happen to be learned enough 
 in piscatorial science to enlighten me on that 
 point, Doctor?" 
 
 " No," returned the physician, gruffly, 
 " I've never looked into the matter." 
 
 " I guess it's because Friday is an unlucky 
 day," said the Idiot. " Just think of all the 
 unlucky things that may happen before and 
 after eating fish, as well as during the pro 
 cess. In the first place, before eating, you 
 go off and fish all day, and have no luck 
 
" YOU FISH ALL DAT, AND HATE NO LUCK " 
 
149 
 
 don't catch a thing. You fall in the water 
 perhaps, and lose your watch, or your fish 
 hook catches in your coat-tails, with the re 
 sult that you come near casting yourself in 
 stead of the fly into the brook or the pond, as 
 the case may be. Perhaps the hook doesn't 
 stop with the coat-tails, but goes on in, and 
 catches you. That's awfully unlucky, espe 
 cially when the hook is made of unusually 
 barby barbed wire. 
 
 "Then, again, you may go fishing on some 
 body else's preserves, and get arrested, and 
 sent to jail overnight, and hauled up the next 
 morning, and have to pay ten dollars fine for 
 poaching. Think of Mr. Pedagog being fined 
 ten dollars for poaching ! Awfully unfort 
 unate !" 
 
 " Kindly leave me out of your calcula 
 tions," returned Mr. Pedagog, with a flush of 
 indignation. 
 
 " Certainly, if you wish it," said the Idiot. 
 " We'll hand Mr. Brief over to the police, and 
 let him be fined for poaching on somebody 
 else's preserves although that's sort of im 
 possible, too, because Mrs. Pedagog never lets 
 us see preserves of any kind." 
 
 "We had brandied peaches last Sunday 
 night," said the landlady, indignantly. 
 14 
 
150 
 
 " Oh yes, so we did," returned the Idiot. 
 "That must have been what the Bibliomaniac 
 had taken," he added, turning to the genial 
 gentleman who occasionally imbibed. " You 
 know, we thought he'd been ah he'd been 
 absorbing." 
 
 " To what do you refer ?" asked the Biblio 
 maniac, curtly. 
 
 " To the brandied peaches," returned the 
 Idiot. " Do not press me further, please, be 
 cause we like you, old fellow, and I don't be 
 lieve anybody noticed it but ourselves." 
 
 " Noticed what ? I want to know what you 
 noticed and when you noticed it," said the 
 Bibliomaniac, savagely. " I don't want any 
 nonsense, either. I just want a plain state 
 ment of facts. What did you notice ?" 
 
 "Well, if you must have it," said the Idiot, 
 slowly, "my friend who imbibes and I were 
 rather pained on Sunday night to observe that 
 you that you had evidently taken something 
 rather stronger than cold water, tea, or Mr. 
 Pedagog's opinions." 
 
 " It's a libel, sir ! a gross libel !" retorted 
 the Bibliomaniac. " How did I show it ? 
 That's what I want to know. How did I 
 show it ? Speak up quick, and loud too. 
 How did I show it ?" 
 
HE COULD BE HEARD THROWING THINGS ABOUT 
 
151 
 
 " Well, you went tip-stairs after tea." 
 
 " Yes, sir, I did." 
 
 "And my friend who imbibes and I were 
 left down in the front hall, and while we were 
 talking there you put your head over the ban 
 isters and asked, ' Who's that down there T 
 Remember that ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, I do. And you replied, ' Mr. 
 Auburnose and myself.' " 
 
 " Yes. And then you asked, ' Who are the 
 other two ?' " 
 
 " Well, I did. What of it ?" 
 
 " Mr. Auburnose and I were there alone. 
 That's what of it. Now I put a charitable 
 construction on the matter and say it was the 
 peaches, when you fly off the handle like one 
 of Mrs. Pedagog's coffee-cups." 
 
 " Sir !" roared the Bibliomaniac, jumping 
 from his chair. " You are the greatest idiot 
 I know." 
 
 " Sir !" returned the Idiot, " you flatter 
 me." 
 
 But the Bibliomaniac was not there to 
 hear. He had rushed from the room, and 
 during the deep silence that ensued he could 
 be heard throwing things about in the cham 
 ber overhead, and in a very few moments the 
 banging of the front door and scurrying down 
 
152 
 
 the brown - stone steps showed that he had 
 gone out of doors to cool off. 
 
 " It is too bad," said the Idiot, after a 
 while, " that he has such a quick temper. It 
 doesn't do a bit of good to get mad that way. 
 He'll be uncomfortable all day long, and over 
 what ? Just because I attempted to say a 
 good word for him, and announce the restora 
 tion of my confidence in his temperance qual 
 ities, he cuts up a high- jinks that makes ev 
 erybody uncomfortable. 
 
 " But to resume about this fish business," 
 continued the Idiot. " Fish " 
 
 " Oh, fish be hanged !" said. the Doctor, im 
 patiently. " We've had enough of fish." 
 
 " Very well," returned the idiot ; " as you 
 wish. Hanging isn't the best treatment for 
 fish, but w 7 e'll let that go. I never cared for 
 the finny tribe myself, and if Mrs. Pedagog 
 can be induced to do it, I for one am in favor 
 of keeping shad, shark, and shrimps out of 
 the house altogether." 
 
VI 
 
 THE Idiot was unusually thoughtful a fact 
 which made the School-Master and the Bib 
 liomaniac unusually nervous. Their stock 
 criticism of him was that he was thoughtless ; 
 and yet when he so far forgot his natural pro 
 pensities as to meditate, they did not like it. 
 It made them uneasy. They had a haunting 
 fear that he was conspiring with himself 
 against them, and no man, not even a callous 
 school-master or a confirmed bibliomaniac, 
 enjoys feeling that he is the object of a con 
 spiracy. The thing to do, then, upon this 
 occasion, seemed obviously to interrupt his 
 train of thought to put obstructions upon 
 his mental track, as it were, and ditch 
 the express, which they feared was get 
 ting up steam at that moment to run them 
 down. 
 
 " You don't seem quite yourself this morn 
 ing, sir," said the Bibliomaniac. 
 
154 
 
 "Don't I?" queried the Idiot. "And whom 
 do I seem to be?" 
 
 " I mean that you seem to have something 
 on your mind that worries you," said the 
 Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " No, I haven't anything on my mind," re 
 turned the Idiot. " I was thinking about you 
 and Mr. Pedagog which implies a thought 
 not likely to use up much of my gray matter." 
 
 " Do you think your head holds any gray 
 matter ?" put in the Doctor. 
 
 " Rather verdant, I should say," said Mr. 
 Pedagog. 
 
 " Green, gray, or pink," said the Idiot, 
 " choose your color. It does not affect the 
 fact that I was thinking about the Biblio 
 maniac and Mr. Pedagog. I have a great 
 scheme in hand, which only requires capital 
 and the assistance of those two gentlemen to 
 launch it on the sea of prosperity. If any of 
 you gentlemen want to get rich and die in 
 comfort as the owner of your homes, now is 
 your chance." 
 
 "In what particular line of business is your 
 scheme ?" asked Mr. Whitechoker. He had 
 often felt that he would like to die in com 
 fort, and to own a little house, even if it had 
 a large mortgage on it. 
 
155 
 
 "Journalism, "said the Idiot. "There is a 
 pile of money to be made out of journalism, 
 particularly if you happen to strike a new 
 idea. Ideas count." 
 
 " How far up do your ideas count up to 
 five ?" questioned Mr. Pedagog, with a tinge 
 of sarcasm in his tone. 
 
 " I don't know about that," returned the 
 Idiot. " The idea I have hold of now, how 
 ever, will count up into the millions if it can 
 only be set going, and before ach one of 
 those millions will stand a big capital S with 
 two black lines drawn vertically through it 
 in other words, my idea holds dollars, but 
 to get the crop you've got to sow the seed. 
 Plant a thousand dollars in my idea, and next 
 year you'll reap two thousand. Plant that, 
 and next year you'll have four thousand, 
 and so on. At that rate millions come 
 easy." 
 
 " I'll give you a dollar for the idea," said 
 the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 "No, I don't want to sell. You'll do to 
 help develop the scheme. You'll make a 
 first-rate tool, but you aren't the workman 
 to manage the tool. I will go as far as to 
 say, however, that without you and Mr. Ped 
 agog, or your equivalents in the animal king- 
 
156 
 
 dom, the idea isn't worth the fabulous sum 
 you offer." 
 
 "You have quite aroused my interest," 
 said Mr. Whitechoker. " Do you propose to 
 start a new paper ?" 
 
 " You are a good guesser," replied the Idiot. 
 "That is a part of the scheme but it isn't 
 the idea. I pi'opose to start a new paper in 
 accordance with the plan which the idea con 
 tains." 
 
 " Is it to be a magazine, or a comic paper, 
 or what ?" asked the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 "Neither. It's a daily." 
 
 "That's nonsense," said Mr. Pedagog, put 
 ting his spoon into the condensed-milk can by 
 mistake. " There isn't a single scheme in 
 daily journalism that hasn't been tried ex 
 cept printing an evening paper in the morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "That's been tried," said the Idiot. "I 
 know of an evening paper the second edition 
 of which is published at mid-day. That's an 
 old dodge, and there's money in it, too 
 money that will never be got out of it. But 
 I really have a grand scheme. So many of 
 our dailies, you know, go in for every horrid 
 detail of daily events that people are begin 
 ning to tire of them. They contain practical- 
 
"HE WAS NOT MURDERED" 
 
157 
 
 ly the same things day after day. So many 
 columns of murder, so many beautiful sui 
 cides, so much sport, a modicum of general 
 intelligence, plenty of fires, no end of embez 
 zlements, financial news, advertisements, and 
 head-lines. Events, like history, repeat them 
 selves, until people have grown weary of 
 them. They want something new. For in 
 stance, if you read in your morning paper 
 that a man has shot another man, you know 
 that the man who was shot was an inoffen 
 sive person who never injured a soul, stood 
 high in the community in which he lived, and 
 leaves a widow with four children. On the 
 other hand, you know without reading the 
 account that the murderer shot his victim in 
 self-defence, and was apprehended by the de 
 tectives late last night ; that his counsel for 
 bid him to talk to the reporters, and that it 
 is rumored that he comes of a good family 
 living in New England. 
 
 "If a breach of trust is committed, you 
 know that the defaulter was the last man of 
 whom such an act would be suspected, and, 
 except in the one detail of its location and 
 sect, that he was prominent in some church. 
 Yon can calculate to a cent how much has been 
 stolen by a glance at the amount of space de- 
 
158 
 
 voted to the account of the crime. Loaf of 
 bread, two lines. Thousand dollars, ten lines. 
 Hundred thousand dollars, half-column. Mill 
 ion dollars, a full column. Five million dol 
 lars, half the front page, wood-cut of the em 
 bezzler, and two editorials, one leader and one 
 paragraph. 
 
 "And so with everything. We are creat 
 ures of habit. The expected always happens, 
 and newspapers are dull because the events 
 they chronicle are dull." 
 
 "Granting the truth of this," put in the 
 School - Master, "what do you propose to 
 do?" 
 
 " Get up a newspaper that will devote its 
 space to telling what hasn't happened." 
 
 " That's been done," said the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 "To a much more limited extent than we 
 think," returned the Idiot. " It has never 
 been done consistently and truthfully." 
 
 "I fail to see how a newspaper can be 
 made to prevaricate truthfully," asserted Mr. 
 Whitechoker. To tell the truth, he was great 
 ly disappointed with the idea, because he 
 could not in the nature of things become one 
 of its beneficiaries. 
 
 " I haven't suggested prevarication," said 
 the Idiot. "Put on your front page, for in- 
 
"SUPERINTENDENT SMITHERS HAS NOT ABSCONDED' 
 
159 
 
 stance, an item like this : ' George Bronson, 
 colored, aged twenty -nine, a resident of 
 Thompson Street, was caught cheating at 
 poker last night. He was not murdered.' 
 There you tell what has not happened. There 
 is a variety about it. It has the charm of the 
 unexpected. Then you might say : ' Curious 
 incident on Wall Street yesterday. So-and- 
 so, who was caught on the bear side of the 
 market with 10,000 shares of J. B. & S. K. W., 
 paid off all his obligations in full, and retired 
 from business with $1,000,000 clear.' Or we 
 might say, ' Superintendent Smithers, of the 
 St. Goliath's Sunday-school, who is also cash 
 ier in the Forty-eighth National Bank, has 
 not absconded with 14,000,000.' " 
 
 " Oh, that's a rich idea," put in the School- 
 Master. "You'd earn $1,000,000 in libel suits 
 the first year." 
 
 " No, you wouldn't, either," said the Idiot. 
 "You don't libel a man when you say he 
 hasn't murdered anybody. Quite the con 
 trary, you call attention to his conspicuous 
 virtue. You are in reality commending those 
 who refrain from criminal practice, instead 
 of delighting those who are fond of depart 
 ing from the paths of Christianity by giving 
 them notoriety." 
 15 
 
160 
 
 "But I fail to see in what respect Mr. Ped- 
 agog and I are essential to your scheme," 
 said the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 "I must confess to some curiosity on my 
 own part on that point," added the School- 
 Master. 
 
 "Why, it's perfectly clear," returned the 
 Idiot, with a conciliating smile as he prepared 
 to depart. "You both know so much that 
 isn't so, that I rather rely on you to fill up." 
 
VII 
 
 A NEW boarder had joined the circle about 
 Mrs. Pedagog's breakfast -table. He had 
 what the Idiot called a three-ply name 
 which was Richard Henderson Warren and 
 he was by profession a poet. Whether it was 
 this that made it necessary for him to board 
 or not, the rewards of the muse being rather 
 slender, was known only to himself, and he 
 showed no disposition to enlighten his fel 
 low-boarders on the subject. His success as a 
 poet Mrs. Fed agog found it hard to gauge ; 
 for while the postman left almost daily nu 
 merous letters, the envelopes of which showed 
 that they came from the various periodicals 
 of the day, it was never exactly clear whether 
 or not the missives contained remittances or 
 rejected manuscripts, though the fact that 
 Mr. Warren was the only boarder in the 
 house who had requested to have a waste- 
 basket added to the furniture of his room 
 
seemed to indicate that they contained the 
 latter. To this request Mrs. Pedagog had 
 gladly acceded, because she had a notion that 
 therein at some time or another would be 
 found a clew to the new boarder's past his 
 tory or possibly some evidence of such du 
 plicity as the good lady suspected he might 
 be guilty of. She had read that Byron was 
 profligate, and that Poe was addicted to 
 drink, and she was impressed with the idea 
 that poets generally were bad men, and she 
 regarded the waste-basket as a possible means 
 of protecting herself against any such idiosyn 
 crasies of her new-found genius as would 
 operate to her disadvantage if not looked 
 after in time. 
 
 This waste-basket she made it her daily 
 duty to empty, and in the privacy of her 
 own room. Half -finished "ballads, songs, 
 and snatches" she perused before consign 
 ing them to the flames or to the large jute 
 bag in the cellar, for which the ragman called 
 two or three times a year. Once Mrs. Peda- 
 gog's heart almost stopped beating when she 
 found at the bottom of the basket a printed 
 slip beginning, " The Editor regrets that the 
 enclosed lines are unavailable" and closing 
 with about thirteen reasons, any one or all 
 
163 
 
 of which might have been the main cause of 
 the poet's disappointment. Had it not been 
 for the kindly clause in the printed slip that 
 insinuated in graceful terms that this rejec 
 tion did not imply a lack of literary merit 
 in the contribution itself, the good lady, 
 knowing well that there was even less money 
 to be made from rejected than from accept 
 ed poetry, would have been inclined to re 
 quest the poet to vacate the premises. The 
 very next day, however, she was glad she 
 had not requested the resignation of the poet 
 from the laureateship of her house ; for the 
 same basket gave forth another printed slip 
 from another editor, begging the poet to 
 accept the enclosed check, with thanks for 
 his contribution, and asking him to de 
 posit it as soon as practicable which 
 was pleasing enough, since it implied 
 that the poet was the possessor of a bank 
 account. 
 
 Now Mrs. Pedagog was consumed with cu 
 riosity to know for how large a sum the check 
 called which desire was gratified a few days 
 later, when the inspired boarder paid his 
 week's bill with three one-dollar bills and a 
 check, signed by a well-known publisher, for 
 two dollars. 
 
164 
 
 By the boarders themselves the poet was 
 regarded with much interest. The School- 
 Master had read one or two of his effusions 
 in the Fireside Corner of the journal he re 
 ceived weekly from his home up in New 
 England effusions which showed no little 
 merit, as well as indicating that Mr. Warren 
 wrote for a literary syndicate ; Mr. "White- 
 choker had known of him as the young man 
 who was to have written a Christmas carol 
 for his Sunday-school a year before, and who 
 had finished and presented the manuscript 
 shortly after New-Year's day ; while to the 
 Idiot, Mr. Warren's name was familiar as that 
 of a frequent contributor to the funny papers 
 of the day. 
 
 " I was very much amused by your poem 
 in the last number of the Observer, Mr. War 
 ren," said the Idiot, as they sat down to 
 breakfast together. 
 
 " Were you, indeed ?" returned Mr. War 
 ren. " I am sorry to hear that, for it was 
 intended to be a serious effort." 
 
 " Of course it was, Mr. Warren, and so it 
 appeared," said the School-Master, with an 
 indignant glance at the Idiot. " It was a 
 very dignified and stately bit of work, and I 
 must congratulate you upon it." 
 
THE INSPIKKD BOARDKR PAID HIS BILL 
 
105 
 
 " I didn't mean to give offence," said the 
 Idiot. " I've read so much of yours that was 
 purely humorous that I believe I'd laugh at 
 a dirge if you should write one ; but I really 
 thought your lines in the Observer were a 
 burlesque. You had the same thought that 
 Rossetti expresses in 'The Woodspurge': 
 
 ' The wind flapped loose, the wind was still, 
 Shaken out dead from tree to hill ; 
 I had walked on at the wind's will, 
 I sat now, for the wind was still.' 
 
 That's Rossetti, if you remember. Slightly 
 suggestive of ' Blow Ye Winds of the Morn 
 ing ! Blow ! Blow ! Blow !' but more or less 
 pleasing." 
 
 "I recall the poem you speak of," said 
 Warren, w r ith dignity ; " but the true poet, 
 sir and I hope I have some claim to be con 
 sidered as such never so far forgets himself 
 as to burlesque his masters." 
 
 " Well, I don't know what to call it, then, 
 when a poet takes the same thought that has 
 previously been used by his masters and 
 makes a funny poem 
 
 " But," returned the Poet, warmly, " it was 
 not a funny poem." 
 
 "It made me laugh," retorted the Idiot, 
 
166 
 
 " and that is more than half the professedly 
 funny poems we get nowadays can do. There 
 fore I say it was a funny poem, and I don't 
 see how you can deny that it was a burlesque 
 of Kossetti." 
 
 " Well, I do deny it in toto." 
 
 " I don't know anything about denying it 
 in toto," rejoined the Idiot, " but I'd deny it 
 in print if I were you. I know plenty of 
 people who think it was a burlesque, and I 
 overheard one man say he is a Rossetti 
 crank that you ought to be ashamed of 
 yourself for writing it." 
 
 " There is no use of discussing the matter 
 further," said the Poet. "I am innocent of 
 any such intent as you have ascribed to me, 
 and if people say I have burlesqued Rossetti 
 they say what is not true." 
 
 "Did you ever read that little poem of 
 Swinburne's called ' The Boy at the Gate ' ?" 
 asked the Idiot, to change the subject. 
 
 " I have no recollection of it," said the Poet, 
 shortly. 
 
 "The name sounds familiar," put in Mr. 
 Whitechoker, anxious not to be left out of a 
 literary discussion. 
 
 " I have read it, but I forget just how it 
 goes," vouchsafed the School-Master, forget- 
 
167 
 
 ting for a moment the Robert Elsmere ep 
 isode and its lesson. 
 
 "It goes something like this," said the 
 
 Idiot: 
 
 "Sombre and sere the slim sycamore sighs; 
 Lushly the lithe leaves lie low o'er the land; 
 Whistles the wind with its whisperings wise, 
 Grewsomely gloomy and garishly grand. 
 So doth the sycamore solemnly stand, 
 Wearily watching in wondering wait ; 
 So it has stood for six centuries, and 
 Still it is waiting the boy at the gate." 
 
 "No; I never read the poem," said Mr. 
 Whitechoker, " but I'd know it was Swin 
 burne in a minute. He has such a command 
 of alliterative language." 
 
 "Yes," said the Poet, with an uneasy glance 
 at the Idiot. " It is Swinburnian ; but what 
 was the poem about ?" 
 
 "'The boy at the gate,'" said the Idiot. 
 " The idea was that the sycamore was stand 
 ing there for centuries waiting for the boy 
 who never turns up." 
 
 "It really is a beautiful thought," put in 
 Mr. Whitechoker. " It is, I presume, an alle 
 gory to contrast faithful devotion and con 
 stancy with unfaithfulness and fickleness. 
 
168 
 
 Such thoughts occur only to the wholly gift 
 ed. It is only to the poetic temperament 
 that the conception of such a thought can 
 come coupled with the ability to voice it in 
 fitting terms. There is a grandeur about the 
 lines the Idiot has quoted that betrays the 
 master-mind." 
 
 "Very true," said the School-Master, "and 
 I take this opportunity to say that I am most 
 agreeably surprised in the Idiot. It is no 
 small thing even to be able to repeat a poet's 
 lines so carefully, and with so great lucidity, 
 and so accurately, as I can testify that he has 
 just done." 
 
 "Don't be too pleased, Mr. Pedagog," 
 said the Idiot, dryly. "I only wanted to 
 show Mr. Warren that you and Mr. White- 
 choker, mines of information though you are, 
 have not as yet worked up a corner on 
 knowledge to the exclusion of the rest of 
 us." And with these words the Idiot left the 
 table. 
 
 "He is a queer fellow," said the School- 
 Master. " He is full of pretence and hol- 
 lowness, but he is sometimes almost brill 
 iant." 
 
 "What you say is very true," said Mr. 
 Whitechoker. "I think he has just escaped 
 
" i KNOW you CAN'T, BECAUSE IT ISN'T THERE " 
 
169 
 
 being a smart man. I wish we could take 
 him in hand, Mr. Pedagog, and make him, 
 more of a fellow than he is." 
 
 Later in the day the Poet met the Idiot on 
 the stairs. " I say," he said, " I've looked all 
 through Swinburne, and I can't find that 
 poem." 
 
 " I know you can't," returned the Idiot, "be 
 cause it isn't there. Swinburne never wrote 
 it. It was a little thing of my own. I was 
 only trying to get a rise out of Mr. Pedagog 
 and his Reverence with it. You have fre 
 quently appeared impressed by the undoubt 
 edly impressive manner of these two gen 
 tlemen. I wanted to show you what their 
 opinions were worth." 
 
 "Thank you," returned the Poet, with a 
 smile. " Don't you want to go into partner 
 ship with me and write for the funny papers ? 
 It would be a splendid thing for me your 
 ideas are so original." 
 
 "And I can see fun in everything, too," 
 said the Idiot, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Yes," returned the Poet. " Even in my 
 serious poems." 
 
 Which remark made the Idiot blush a lit 
 tle, but he soon recovered his composure and 
 made a firm friend of the Poet. 
 
170 
 
 The first fruits of the partnership have not 
 yet appeared, however. 
 
 As for Messrs. Whitechoker and Pedagog, 
 when they learned how they had been de 
 ceived, they were so indignant that they did 
 not speak to the Idiot for a week. 
 
VIII 
 
 IT was Sunday morning, and Mr. White- 
 choker, as was his wont on the first day of 
 the week, appeared at the breakfast table se 
 vere as to his mien. 
 
 " Working on Sunday weighs on his mind," 
 the Idiot said to the Bibliomaniac, "but I 
 don't see why it should. The luxury of rest 
 that he allows himself the other six days of 
 the week is surely an atonement for the hours 
 of labor he puts in on Sunday." 
 
 But it was not this that on Sunday morn 
 ings weighed on the mind of the Reverend 
 Mr. Whitechoker. He appeared more serious 
 of visage then because he had begun to think 
 of late that his fellow - boarders lived too 
 much in the present, and ignored almost to 
 tally that which might be expected to come. 
 He had been revolving in his mind for sever 
 al weeks the question as to whether it was or 
 was not his Christian duty to attempt to in- 
 16 
 
172 
 
 fluence the lives of these men with whom the 
 chances of life had brought him in contact. 
 He had finally settled it to his own satisfac 
 tion that it was his duty so to do, and he had 
 resolved, as far as lay in his power, to direct 
 the conversation at Sunday morning's break 
 fast into spiritual rather than into temporal 
 matters. 
 
 So, as Mrs. Pedagog was pouring the coffee, 
 Mr. Whitechoker began : 
 
 "Do you gentlemen ever pause in your 
 every -day labors and thought to let your 
 minds rest upon the future the possibili 
 ties it has in store for us, the consequences 
 which" 
 
 " No mush, thank you," said the Idiot. 
 Then turning to Mr. Whitechoker, he added : 
 "I can't answer for the other gentlemen at 
 this board, but I can assure you, Mr. White- 
 choker, that I often do so. It was only last 
 night, sir, that my genial friend who imbibes 
 and I were discussing the future and its pos 
 sibilities, and I venture to assert that there is 
 no more profitable food for reflection any 
 where in the larders of the mind than that." 
 
 " Larders of the mind is excellent," said the 
 School-Master, with a touch of sarcasm in his 
 voice. "Perhaps you would not mind open- 
 
173 
 
 ing the door to your mental pantry, and let 
 ting us peep within at the stores you keep 
 there. I am sure that on the subject in hand 
 your views cannot fail to be original as well 
 as edifying." 
 
 "I am also sure," said Mr. Whitechoker, 
 somewhat surprised to hear the Idiot speak 
 as he did, having sometimes ventured to 
 doubt if that flippant-minded young man ever 
 reflected on the serious side of life " I arn 
 also sure that it is most gratifying to hear 
 that you have done some thinking on the 
 subject." 
 
 " I am glad you are gratified, Mr. White- 
 choker," replied the Idiot, " but I am far from 
 taking undue credit to myself because I re 
 flect upon the future and its possibilities. I 
 do not see how any man can fail to be inter 
 ested in the subject, particularly when he 
 considers the great strides science has made 
 in the last twenty years." 
 
 "I fail to see," said the School - Master, 
 " what the strides of science have to do with 
 it." 
 
 " You fail to see so often, Mr. Pedagog," 
 returned the Idiot, "that I would advise your 
 eyes to make an assignment in favor of your 
 pupils." 
 
174 
 
 " I must confess," put in Mr. Whitechoker, 
 blandly, " that I too am somewhat er some 
 what" 
 
 " Somewhat up a tree as to science's con 
 nection with the future ?" queried the Idiot. 
 
 " You have my meaning, but hardly the 
 phraseology I should have chosen," replied 
 the minister. 
 
 " My style is rather epigrammatic," said the 
 Idiot, suavely. " I appreciate the flattery im 
 plied by vour noticing it. But science has 
 everything to do with it. It is science that is 
 going to make the future great. It is science 
 that has annihilated distance, and the anni 
 hilation has just begun. Twenty years ago it 
 was hardly possible for a man standing an 
 one side of the street to make himself heard 
 on the other, the acoustic properties of the at 
 mosphere not being what they should be. To 
 day you can stand in the pulpit of your 
 church, and by means of certain scientific ap 
 paratus make yourself heard in Boston, New 
 Orleans, or San Francisco. Has this no bear 
 ing on the future ? The time will come, Mr. 
 Whitechoker, when your missionaries will be 
 able to sit in their comfortable rectories, and 
 ring up the heathen in foreign climes, and 
 convert them over the telephone, without run- 
 
YOC CAN MAKE YOURSELF HEARD IN SAN KRASCISCO 
 
175 
 
 ning the slightest danger of falling into the 
 soup, which expression I use in its literal 
 rather than in its metaphorical sense." 
 
 " But " interrupted Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 "Now wait, please," said the Idiot. "If 
 science can annihilate degrees of distance, 
 who shall say that before many days science 
 may not annihilate degrees of time ? If San 
 Francisco, thousands of miles distant, can be 
 brought within range of the ear, why cannot 
 1990 be brought before the mind's eye ? And 
 if 1990 can be brought before the mind's eye, 
 what is to prevent the invention of a prophet- 
 ograph which shall enable us to cast a hor 
 oscope which shall reach all around eternity 
 and half-way back, if not further ?" 
 
 "You do not understand me," said Mr. 
 Whitechoker. " When I speak of the future, 
 I do not mean the temporal future." 
 
 " I know exactly what you mean," said the 
 Idiot. "I've dealt in futures, and I am famil 
 iar with all kinds. It is you, sir, that do not 
 understand me. My claim is perfectly plausi 
 ble, and in its results is bound to make the 
 world better. Do you suppose that any man 
 who, by the aid of my prophetograph, sees that 
 on a certain date in the future he will be hanged 
 for murder is going to fail to provide himself 
 
with an alibi in regard to that particular mur 
 der, and must we not admit that having pro 
 vided himself with that alibi he will of ne 
 cessity avoid bloodshed, and so avoid the gal 
 lows ? That's reasonable. So in regard to all 
 the thousand and one other peccadilloes that 
 go to make this life a sinful one. Science, by 
 a purely logical advance along the lines al 
 ready mapped out for itself, and in part al 
 ready traversed, will enable men to avoid the 
 pitfalls and reap only the windfalls of life ; 
 we shall all see what terrible consequences 
 await on a single misstep, and we shall not 
 make the misstep. Can you still claim that 
 science and the future have nothing to do 
 with each other?" 
 
 "You are talking of matters purely tem 
 poral," said Mr. Whitechoker. " I have ref 
 erence to our spiritual future." 
 
 "And the two," observed the Idiot, "are so 
 closely allied that we cannot separate them. 
 The proverb about looking after the pennies 
 and letting the pounds take care of them 
 selves applies here. I believe that if I take 
 care of my temporal future which, by-the- 
 way, does not exist my spiritual future will 
 take care of itself; and if science places the 
 hereafter before us and you admit that even 
 
THE PKOPHETOGRAPU 
 
177 
 
 now it is before us all we have to do is to 
 take advantage of our opportunities, and mend 
 our lives accordingly." 
 
 " But if science shows you what is to come," 
 said the School-Master, "it must show your fate 
 with perfect accuracy, or it ceases to be science, 
 in which event your entertaining notions as 
 to reform and so on are entirely fallacious." 
 
 " Not at all," said the Idiot. " We are ap 
 proaching the time when science, which is 
 much more liberal than any other branch of 
 knowledge, will sacrifice even truth itself for 
 the good of mankind." 
 
 " You ought to start a paradox company," 
 suggested the Doctor. 
 
 " Either that or make himself the nucleus 
 of an insane asylum," observed the School- 
 Master, viciously. " I never knew a man with 
 such maniacal views as those we have heard 
 this morning." 
 
 " There is a great deal, Mr. Pedagog, that 
 you have never known," returned the Idiot. 
 "Stick by me, and you'll die with a mind 
 richly stored." 
 
 Whereat the School-Master left the table 
 with such manifest impatience that Mr. White- 
 choker was sorry he had started the conversa 
 tion. 
 
178 
 
 The genial gentleman who occasionally im 
 bibed and the Idiot withdrew to the latter's 
 room, where the former observed : 
 
 "What are you driving at, anyhow? Where 
 did you get those crazy ideas ?" 
 
 "I ate a Welsh - rarebit last night, and 
 dreamed 'em," returned the Idiot. 
 
 " I thought as much," said his companion. 
 " What deuced fine things dreams are, any 
 how !" 
 
IX 
 
 BREAKFAST was very nearly over, and it 
 was of such exceptionally good quality that 
 very few remarks had been made. Finally 
 the ball was set rolling by the Lawyer. 
 
 "How many packs of cigarettes do you 
 smoke a day ?" he asked, as the Idiot took 
 one from his pocket and placed it at the side 
 of his coffee-cup. 
 
 "Never more than forty -six," said the 
 Idiot. " Why ? Do you think of starting a 
 cigarette stand ?" 
 
 " Not at all," said Mr. Brief. " I was only 
 wondering what chance you had to live to 
 maturity, that's all. Your maturity period 
 will be in about eight hundred and sixty 
 years from now, the way I calculate, and it 
 seemed to me that, judging from the number 
 of cigarettes you smoke, you were not likely 
 to last through more than two or three of 
 those years." 
 
180 
 
 " Oh, I expect to live longer than that," 
 said the Idiot. "I think I'm good for at 
 least four years. Don't you, Doctor ?" 
 
 "I decline to have anything to say about 
 your case," retorted the Doctor, whose feel 
 ing towards the Idiot was not surpassingly 
 affectionate. 
 
 "In that event I shall probably live five 
 years more," said the Idiot. 
 
 The Doctor's lip curled, but he remained 
 silent. 
 
 " You'll live," put in Mr. Pedagog, with a 
 chuckle. " The good die young." 
 
 "How did you happen to keep alive all 
 this time then, Mr. Pedagog ?" asked the 
 Idiot. 
 
 " I have always eschewed tobacco in every 
 form, for one thing," said Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 " I am surprised," put in the Idiot. "That's 
 really a bad habit, and I marvel greatly that 
 you should have done it." 
 
 The School-Master frowned, and looked at 
 the Idiot over the rims of his glasses, as was 
 his wont when he was intent upon getting 
 explanations. 
 
 "Done what?" he asked, severely. 
 
 "Chewed tobacco," replied the Idiot. 
 "You just said that one of the things that 
 
181 
 
 has kept you lingering in this vale of tears 
 was that you have always chewed tobacco. 
 I never did that, and I never shall do it, be 
 cause I deem it a detestable diversion." 
 
 "I didn't say anything of the sort," re 
 torted Mr. Pedagog, getting red in the face. 
 " I never said that I chewed tobacco in any 
 form." 
 
 "Oh, come!" said the Idiot, with well- 
 feigned impatience, " what's the use of talk 
 ing that way ? We all heard what you said, 
 and I have no doubt that it came as a shock 
 to every member of this assemblage. It cer 
 tainly was a shock to me, because, with all 
 my weaknesses and bad habits, I think* to 
 bacco-chewing unutterably bad. The worst 
 part of it is that you chew it in every form. 
 A man who chews chewing-tobacco only may 
 some time throw off the habit, but when one 
 gets to be such a victim to it that he chews 
 up cigars and cigarettes and plugs of pipe 
 tobacco, it seems to me he is incurable. It is 
 not only a bad habit then ; it amounts to a 
 vice." 
 
 Mr. Pedagog was getting apoplectic. " You 
 know well enough that I never said the words 
 you attribute to me," he said, sternly. 
 
 " Really, Mr. Pedagog," returned the Idiot, 
 
182 
 
 with an irritating shake of his head, as if he 
 were confidentially hinting to the School- 
 Master to keep quiet "really you pain me 
 by these futile denials. Nobody forced you 
 into the confession. You made it entirely of 
 your own volition. Now I ask you, as a 
 man and brother, what's the use of saying 
 anything more about it ? We believe you 
 to be a person of the strictest veracity, but 
 when you say a thing before a tableful of 
 listeners one minute, and deny it the next, 
 we are forced to one of two conclusions, nei 
 ther of which is pleasing. We must con 
 clude that either, repenting your confession, 
 you sacrifice the truth, or that the habit to 
 which you have confessed has entirely de 
 stroyed your perception of the moral ques 
 tion involved. Undue use of tobacco has, I 
 believe, driven men crazy. Opium - eating 
 has destroyed all regard for truth in one 
 whose word had always been regarded as 
 good as a government bond. I presume the 
 undue use of tobacco can accomplish the 
 same sad result. By-the-way, did you ever 
 try opium ?" 
 
 "Opium is ruin," said the Doctor, Mr. 
 Pedagog's indignation being so great that 
 he seemed to be unable to find the words he 
 
183 
 
 was evidently desirous of hurling at the 
 Idiot. 
 
 " It is, indeed," said the Idiot. " I knew 
 a man once who smoked one little pipeful of 
 it, and, while under its influence, sat down at 
 his table and wrote a story of the supernat 
 ural order that was so good that everybody 
 said he must have stolen it from Poe or 
 some other master of the weird, and now 
 nobody will have anything to do with 
 him. Tobacco, however, in the sane use of 
 it, is a good thing. I don't know of anything 
 that is more satisfying to the tired man than 
 to lie back on a sofa, of an evening, and puff 
 clouds of smoke and rings into the air. One 
 of the finest dreams I ever had came from 
 smoking. I had blown a great mountain of 
 smoke out into the room, and it seemed to 
 become real, and I climbed to its summit and 
 saw the most beautiful country at my feet 
 a country in which all men were happy, 
 where there were no troubles of any kind, 
 where no whim was left ungi-atified, where 
 jealousies were not, and where every man 
 who made more than enough to live on paid 
 the surplus into the common treasury for the 
 use of those who hadn't made quite enough. 
 It was a national realization of the golden 
 
184 
 
 rule, and I maintain that if smoking were bad 
 nothing so good, even in the abstract form 
 of an idea, could come out of it." 
 
 "That's a very nice thought," said the 
 Poet. " I'd like to put that into verse. The 
 idea of a people dividing up their surplus 
 of wealth among the less successful strug- 
 glers is beautiful." 
 
 "You can have it," said the Idiot, with a 
 pleased smile. " I don't write poetry of that 
 kind myself unless I work hard, and I've 
 found that when the poet works hard he pro 
 duces poems that read hard. You are wel 
 come to it. Another time I was dreaming 
 over my cigar, after a day of the hardest kind 
 of trouble at the office. Everything had 
 gone wrong with me, and I was blue as indi 
 go. I came home here, lit a cigar, and threw 
 myself down upon my bed and began to puff. 
 I felt like a man in a deep pit, out of which 
 there was no way of getting. I closed 
 my eyes for a second, and to all intents and 
 purposes I lay in that pit. And then what 
 did tobacco do for me ? Why, it lifted me 
 right out of my prison. I thought I was sit 
 ting on a rock down in the depths. The 
 stars twinkled tantalizingly above me. They 
 invited me to freedom, knowing that freedom 
 
"l GRASPED IT IN MY TWO HANDS 1 
 
185 
 
 was not attainable. Then I blew a ring of 
 smoke from my mouth, and it began to rise 
 slowly at first, and then, catching in a cur 
 rent of air, it flew upward more rapidly, 
 widening constantly, until it disappeared in 
 the darkness above. Then I had a thought. 
 I filled my mouth as full of smoke as possi 
 ble, and blew forth the greatest ring you ever 
 saw, and as it started to rise I grasped it in 
 my two hands. It struggled beneath my 
 weight, lengthened out into an elliptical link, 
 and broke, and let me down with a dull thud. 
 Then I made two rings, grasping one with 
 my left hand and the other with my right " 
 
 " And they lifted you out of the pit, I sup 
 pose ?" sneered the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " I do not say that they did," said the 
 Idiot, calmly. "But I do know that when 
 I opened my eyes I wasn't in the pit any 
 longer, but up-stairs in my hall-bedroom." 
 
 " How awfully mysterious !" said the Doc 
 tor, satirically. 
 
 " "Well, I don't approve of smoking," said 
 Mr. Whitechoker. "I agree with the Lon 
 don divine who says it is the pastime of per 
 dition. It is not prompted by natural in 
 stincts. It is only the habit of artificial 
 civilization. Dogs and horses and birds get 
 along without it. Why shouldn't man ?" 
 
186 
 
 " Hear ! hear !" cried Mr. Pedagog, clap 
 ping his hands approvingly. 
 
 " Where ? where ?" put in the Idiot. 
 " That's a great argument. Dog's don't put 
 up in boarding-houses. Is the boarding- 
 house, therefore, the result of a degraded, 
 artificial civilization? I have seen educated 
 horses that didn't smoke, but I have never 
 seen an educated horse, or an uneducated 
 one, for that matter, that had even had the 
 chance to smoke, or the kind of mouth that 
 would enable him to do it in case he had the 
 chance. I have also observed that horses 
 don't read books, that birds don't eat mut 
 ton-chops, that dogs don't go to the opera, 
 that donkeys don't play the piano at least, 
 four-legged donkeys don't so you might as 
 well argue that since horses, dogs, birds, and 
 donkeys get along without literature, music, 
 mutton-chops, and piano-playing " 
 
 " You've covered music," put in the Law 
 yer, who liked to be precise. 
 
 "True; but piano -playing isn't always 
 music," returned the Idiot. " You might 
 as well argue because the beasts and the 
 birds do without these things man ought 
 to. Fish don't smoke, neither do they join 
 the police-force, therefore man should nei- 
 
"PIANO-PLAYING ISN'T ALWAYS MUSIC' 
 
187 
 
 ther smoke nor become a guardian of the 
 peace." 
 
 " Nevertheless it is a pastime of perdition," 
 insisted Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 " No, it isn't," retorted the Idiot. " Smok 
 ing is the business of perdition. It smokes 
 because it has to." 
 
 " There ! there !" remonstrated Mr. Peda 
 
 " You mean hear ! hear ! I presume," said 
 the Idiot. 
 
 " I mean that you have said enough !" re 
 marked Mr. Fed agog, sharply. 
 
 "Very well," said the Idiot. "If I have 
 convinced you all I am satisfied, not to say 
 gratified. But really, Mr. Pedagog," he added, 
 rising to leave the room, " if I were you I'd 
 give up the practice of chewing " 
 
 "Hold on a minute, Mr. Idiot," said Mr. 
 Whitechoker, interrupting. He was desirous 
 that Mr. Pedagog should not be further irri 
 tated. "Let me ask you one question. Does 
 your old father smoke ?" 
 
 " No," said the Idiot, leaning easily over 
 the back of his chair" no. What of it ?" 
 
 "Nothing at all except that perhaps if 
 he could get along without it you might," 
 suggested the clergyman. 
 
188 
 
 " He couldn't get along without it if he 
 knew what good tobacco was," said the Idiot. 
 
 " Then why don't you introduce him to 
 it?" asked the Minister. 
 
 " Because I do not wish to make him un 
 happy," returned the Idiot, softly. " He 
 thinks his seventy years have been the hap 
 piest years that any mortal ever had, and if 
 now in his seventy-first year he discovered 
 that during the whole period of his manhood 
 he had been deprived through ignorance of 
 so great a blessing as a good cigar, he'd be 
 come like the rest of us, living in anticipa 
 tion of delights to come, and not finding ap 
 proximate bliss in living over the past. Trust 
 me, my dear Mr. Whitechoker, to look after 
 him. He and my mother and my life are all 
 I have." 
 
 The Idiot left the room, and Mr. Pedagog 
 put in a greater part of the next half-hour 
 in making personal statements to the remain 
 ing boarders to the effect that the word he 
 used was eschewed, and not the one attribu 
 ted to him by the Idiot. 
 
 Strange to say, most of them were already 
 aware of that fact. 
 
" THE progress of invention in this country 
 has been very remarkable," said Mr. Pedagog, 
 as he turned his attention from a scientific 
 weekly he had been reading to a towering 
 pile of buckwheat cakes that Mary had just 
 brought in. "An Englishman has just dis 
 covered a means by which a ship in distress 
 at sea can write for help on the clouds." 
 
 " Extraordinary !" said Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 " It might be more so/' observed the Idiot, 
 coaxing the platterful of cakes out of the 
 School-Master's reach by a dextrous move 
 ment of his hand. "And it will be more so 
 some day. The time is coming when the 
 moon itself will be used by some enterprising 
 American to advertise his soap business. I 
 haven't any doubt that the next fifty years 
 will develop a stereopticon by means of which 
 a picture of a certain brand of cigar may be 
 projected through space until it seems to be 
 
190 
 
 held between the teeth of the man in the 
 moon, with a printed legend below it stating 
 that this is Tooforfivers Best, Rolled from 
 Sand-made Tobacco, Warranted not to Crock 
 or Fade, and for sale by All Tobacconists at 
 Eighteen for a Dime.' 1 ' 1 
 
 " You would call that an advance in in 
 vention, eh ?" asked the School-Master. 
 
 "Why not?" queried the Idiot. 
 
 " Do you consider the invention which 
 would enable man to debase nature to the 
 level of an advertising medium an ad 
 vance ?" 
 
 " I should not consider the use of the moon 
 for the dissemination of good news a debase 
 ment. If the cigars were good and I have 
 no doubt that some one will yet invent a 
 cheap cigar that is good it would benefit 
 the human race to be acquainted with that 
 fact. I think sometimes that the advertise 
 ments in the newspapers and the periodicals 
 of the day are of more value to the public 
 than the reading-matter, so-called, that stands 
 next to them. I don't see why you should 
 sneer at advertising. I should never have 
 known you, for instance, Mr. Pedagog, had 
 it not been for Mrs. Pedagog's advertisement 
 offering board and lodging to single gentle- 
 
"THE MOON ITSELF WILL BE USED" 
 
191 
 
 men for a consideration. Nor would you 
 have met Mrs. Smithers, now your estimable 
 wife, yourself, had it not been for that ad 
 vertisement. Why, then, do you sneer at 
 the ladder upon which you have in a sense 
 climbed to your present happiness ? You 
 are ungrateful." 
 
 " How you do ramify !" said Mr. Pedagog. 
 "I believe there is no subject in the world 
 which you cannot connect in some way or an 
 other with every other subject in the world. 
 A discussion of the merits of Shakespeare's 
 sonnets could be turned by your dextrous 
 tongue in five minutes into a quarrel over 
 the comparative merits of cider and cod-liver 
 oil as beverages, with you, the chances are, 
 the advocate of cod-liver oil as a steady 
 drink." 
 
 " Well, I most say," said the Idiot, with a 
 smile, " it has been my experience that cod- 
 liver oil is steadier than cider. The cod-liver 
 oils I have had the pleasure of absorbing 
 have been evenly vile, while the ciders that 
 I have drank have been of a variety of good 
 ness, badness, and indifferentness which has 
 brought me to the point where I never touch 
 it. But to return to inventions, since you de 
 sire to limit our discussion to a single sub- 
 
193 
 
 ject, I think it is about the most interesting 
 field of speculation imaginable." 
 
 " There you are right," said Mr. Pedagog, 
 approvingly. "There is absolutely no limit 
 to the possibilities involved. It is almost 
 within the range of possibilities that some 
 man may yet invent a buckwheat cake that 
 will satisfy your abnormal craving for that 
 delicacy, which the present total output of 
 this table seems unable to do." 
 
 Here Mr. Pedagog turned to his wife, and 
 added : " My dear, will you request the cook 
 hereafter to prepare individual cakes for us ? 
 The Idiot has so far monopolized all that 
 have as yet appeared." 
 
 " It appears to me," said the Idiot at this 
 point, " that you are the ramifier, Mr. Peda 
 gog. Nevertheless, ramify as much as you 
 please. I can follow you at a safe distance, 
 of course in the discussion of anything, 
 from Edison to flapjacks. I think your 
 suggestion regarding individual cakes is a 
 good one. We might all have separate grid 
 dles, upon which Gladys, the cook, can pre 
 pare them, and on these griddles might be 
 cast in bold relief the crest of each member 
 of this household, so that every man's cake 
 should, by an easy process in the making, 
 
193 
 
 come off the fire indelibly engraved with the 
 evidence of its destiny. Mr. Pedagog's iron, 
 for instance, might have upon it a school-book 
 rampant, or a large head in the same condi 
 tion. Mr. Whitechoker's cake - mark might 
 be a pulpit rampant, based upon a vestryman 
 dormant. The Doctor might have a lozengy 
 shield with a suitable tincture, while my ge- * 
 nial friend who occasionally imbibes could 
 have a barry shield surmounted by a small 
 effigy of Gambrinus." 
 
 "You appear to know something of her 
 aldry," said the poet, with a look of surprise. 
 
 "I know something of everything," said 
 the Idiot, complacently. 
 
 "It's a pity you don't know everything 
 about something," sneered the Doctor. 
 
 " I would suggest," said the School-Master, 
 dryly, "that a little rampant jackass would 
 make a good crest for your cakes." 
 
 " That's a very good idea," said the Idiot. 
 "I do not know but that a jackass rampant 
 would be about as comprehensive of my 
 virtues as anything I might select. The 
 jackass is a combination of all the best qual 
 ities. He is determined. He minds his own 
 business. He doesn't indulge in flippant 
 conversation. He is useful. Has no vices, 
 
 18 
 
194 
 
 never pretends to be anything but a jackass, 
 and most respectfully declines to be ridden 
 by Tom, Dick, and Harry. I accept the sug 
 gestion of Mr. Pedagog with thanks. But 
 we are still ramifying. Let us get back to 
 inventions. Now I fully believe that the 
 time is coming when some inventive genius 
 will devise a method whereby intellect can 
 be given to those who haven't any. I be 
 lieve that the time is coming when the secrets 
 of the universe will be yielded up to man by 
 nature." 
 
 " And then ?" queried Mr. Brief. 
 
 "Then some man will try to improve on 
 the secrets of the universe. He will try to 
 invent an apparatus by means of which the 
 rotation of the world may be made faster or 
 slower, according to his will. If he has but 
 one day, for instance, in which to do a stated 
 piece of work, and he needs two, he will put 
 on some patent brake and slow the world up 
 until the distance travelled in one hour shall 
 be reduced one-half, so that one hour under 
 the old system will be equivalent to two ; or 
 if he is anticipating some joy, some diversion 
 in the future, the same smart person will find 
 a way to increase the speed of the earth so 
 that the hours will be like minutes. Then 
 
195 
 
 he'll begin fooling with gravitation, and he 
 will discover a new-fashioned lodestone, 
 which can be carried in one's hat to counter 
 act the influence of the centre of gravity 
 when one falls out of a window or off a 
 precipice, the result of which will be that 
 the person who falls off one of these high 
 places will drop down slowly, and not with 
 the rapidity which at the present day is re 
 sponsible for the dreadful outcome of acci 
 dents of that sort. Then, finally " 
 
 "You pretend to be able to penetrate to 
 the finality, do you ?" asked the Clergyman. 
 
 " Why not ? It is as easy to imagine the 
 finality as it is to go half-way there," returned 
 the Idiot. " Finally he will tackle some ele 
 mentary principle of nature, and he'll blow 
 the world to smithereens." 
 
 There was silence at the table. This at 
 least seemed to be a tenable theory. That 
 man should have the temerity to take liber 
 ties with elementary principles was quite 
 within reason, man being an animal of rare 
 conceit, and that the result would bring about 
 destruction was not at all at variance with 
 probability. 
 
 " I believe it's happened once or twice al 
 ready," said the Idiot. 
 
196 
 
 " Do you really?" asked Mr. Pedagog, with 
 a show of interest. " Upon what do you base 
 this belief ?" 
 
 " Well, take Africa," said the Idiot. " Take 
 North America. What do we find ? We 
 find in the sands of the Sahara a great statue, 
 which we call the Sphinx, and about which 
 we know nothing, except that it is there and 
 that it keeps its mouth shut. We find mar 
 vellous creations in engineering that to-day 
 surpass anything that we can do. The Sphinx, 
 when discovered, was covered by sand. Now 
 I believe that at one time there were people 
 much further advanced in science than our 
 selves, who made these wonderful things, who 
 knew how to do things that we don't even 
 dream of doing, and I believe that they, like 
 this creature I have predicted, got fooling 
 with the centre of gravity, and that the world 
 slipped its moorings for a period of time, dur 
 ing which time it tumbled topsy-turvey into 
 space, and that banks and banks of sand and 
 water and ice thrown out of position simply 
 swept on and over the whole surface of the 
 globe continuously until the earth got into 
 the grip of the rest of the universe once more 
 and started along in a new orbit. We know 
 that where we are high and dry to-day the 
 
197 
 
 ocean must once have rolled. We know that 
 where the world is now all sunshine and flow 
 ers great glaciers stood. What caused all 
 this change ? Nothing else, in my judg 
 ment, than the monkeying of man with the 
 forces of nature. The poles changed, and it 
 wouldn't surprise me a bit that, if the north 
 pole were ever found and could be thawed 
 out, we should find embedded in that great 
 sea of ice evidences of a former civilization, 
 just as in the Saharan waste evidences of the 
 same thing have been found. I know of a 
 place out West that is literally strewn with 
 oyster-shells, and yet no man living has the 
 slightest idea how they came there. It may 
 have been the Massachusetts Bay of a pre 
 historic time, for all we know. It may have 
 been an antediluvian Coney Island, for all the 
 world knows. Who shall say that this little 
 upset of mine found here an oyster-bed, 
 shook all the oysters out of their bed into 
 space, and left their clothes high and dry in 
 a locality which, but for those garments, 
 would seem never to have known the oyster 
 in his prime ? Off in Westchester County, on 
 the top of a high hill, lies a rock, and in the 
 uppermost portion of that rock is a so-called 
 pot-hole, made by nothing else than the drop- 
 
198 
 
 ping of water of a brook and the swirling of 
 pebbles therein. It is now beyond the reach 
 of anything in the shape of water save that 
 which falls from the heavens. It is certain 
 that this pot-hole was never made by a boy 
 with a watering-pot, by a hired man with a 
 hose, by a workman with a drill, or by any 
 rain-storm that ever fell in Westchester Coun 
 ty. There must at some time or another have 
 been a stream there ; and as streams do not 
 flow uphill and bore pot-holes on mountain- 
 tops, there must have been a valley there. 
 Some great cataclysm took place. For that 
 cataclysm nature must be held responsible 
 mainly. But what prompted nature to raise 
 hob with Westchester County millions of 
 years ago, and to let it sleep like Rip Van 
 Winkle ever since ? Nature isn't a freak. 
 She is depicted as a woman, but in spite of 
 that she is not whimsical. She does not act 
 upon impulses. There must have been some 
 cause for her behavior in turning valleys into 
 hills, in transforming huge cities into wastes 
 of sand, and oyster-beds into shell quarries ; 
 and it is my belief that man was the contrib 
 uting cause. He tapped the earth for natural 
 gas ; he bored in and he bored out, and he 
 bored nature to death, and then nature rose 
 
199 
 
 up and smote him and his cities and his oys 
 ter-beds, and she'll do it again unless we go 
 slow." 
 
 " There is a great deal in what you say," 
 said Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 " Very true," said Mrs. Pedagog. " But I 
 wish he'd stop saying it. The last three 
 dozen cakes have got cold as ice while he 
 was talking, and I can't afford such reckless 
 waste." 
 
 "Nor we, Mrs. Pedagog," said the Idiot, 
 with a pleasant smile ; " for, as I was saying 
 to the Bibliomaniac this morning, your buck 
 wheat cakes are, to my mind, the very high 
 est development of our modern civilization, 
 and to have even one of them wasted seems 
 to me to be a crime against Nature herself, 
 for which a second, third, or fourth shaking 
 up of this earth would be an inadequate pun 
 ishment." 
 
 This remark so pleased Mrs. Pedagog that 
 she ordered the cook to send up a fresh lot 
 of cakes; and the guests, after eating them, 
 adjourned to their various duties with light 
 hearts, and digestions occupied with work of 
 great importance. 
 
XI 
 
 I WONDEK what would have happened if 
 Columbus had not discovered America?" said 
 the Bibliomaniac, as the company prepared 
 to partake of the morning meal. 
 
 "He would have gone home disappointed," 
 said the Idiot, with a look of surprise on his 
 face, which seemed to indicate that in his 
 opinion the Bibliomaniac was very dull-witted 
 not to have solved the problem for himself. 
 " He would have gone home disappointed, 
 and we would now be foreigners, like most 
 other Americans. Mr. Pedagog would doubt 
 less be instructing the young scions of the 
 aristocracy of Tipperary, Mr. Whitechoker 
 would be Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bib 
 liomaniac would be raising bulbs in Holland, 
 and" 
 
 " And you would be wandering about with 
 the other wild men of Borneo at the present 
 time," put in the School-Master. 
 
"THE BIBLIOMANIAC WOULD BB RAISING BULBS" 
 
201 
 
 "No," said the Idiot. "Not quite. I 
 should be dividing my time up between Hol 
 land, France, Switzerland, and Spain." 
 
 " You are an international sort of Idiot, 
 eh ?" queried the Lawyer, with a chuckle at 
 his own wit. 
 
 " Say rather a cosmopolitan Idiot," said the 
 ' Idiot. " Among my ancestors I number in 
 dividuals of various nations, though I sup 
 pose that if we go back far enough we were 
 all in the same boat as far as that is con 
 cerned. One of my great-great-grandfathers 
 was a Scotchman, one of them was a Dutch 
 man, another was a Spaniard, a fourth was a 
 Frenchman. What the others were I don't 
 know. It's a nuisance looking up one's an 
 cestors, I think. They increase so as you go 
 back into the past. Every man has had two 
 grandfathers, four great - grandfathers, eight 
 great-great-grandfathers, sixteen great-great- 
 great-grandfathers, thirty-two fathers raised 
 to the fourth power of great-grandness, and 
 so on, increasing in number as you go further 
 back, until it is hardly possible for any one to 
 throw a brick into the pages of history with 
 out hitting somebody who is more or less re 
 sponsible for his existence. I dare say there 
 is a streak of Julius Caesar in me, and I 
 
203 
 
 haven't a doubt that if our friend Mr. Peda- 
 gog here were to take the trouble to investi 
 gate, he would find that Caesar and Cassius 
 and Brutus could be numbered among his 
 early progenitors and now that I think of it, 
 I must say that in my estimation he is an un 
 usually amiable man, considering how diverse 
 the nature of these men were. Think of it 
 for a minute. Here a man unites in himself 
 Caesar and Cassius and Brutus, two of whom 
 killed the third, and then, having quarrelled 
 together, went out upon a battle-field and 
 slaughtered themselves, after making extem 
 poraneous remarks, for which this miserable 
 world gives Shakespeare all the credit. It's 
 worse than the case of a friend of mine, one 
 of whose grandfathers was French and the 
 other German." 
 
 " How did it affect him?" asked Mr. White- 
 choker. 
 
 "It made him distrust himself," said the 
 Idiot, with a smile, " and for that reason he 
 never could get on in the world. When his 
 Teutonic nature suggested that he do some 
 thing, his Gallic blood would rise up and spoil 
 everything, and vice versa. He was eternally 
 quarrelling with himself. He was a victim to 
 internal disorder of the worst sort." 
 
203 
 
 " And what, pray, finally became of him ?" 
 asked the Clergyman. 
 
 " He shot himself in a duel," returned the 
 Idiot, with a wink at the genial old gentle 
 man who occasionally imbibed. "It was 
 very sad." 
 
 " I've known sadder things," said Mr. Ped- 
 agog, wearily. "Your elaborate jokes, for 
 instance. They are enough to make strong 
 men weep." 
 
 "You flatter me, Mr. Pedagog," said the 
 Idiot. " I have never in all my experience as 
 a cracker of jests made a man laugh until he 
 cried, but I hope to some day. But, really, 
 do you know I think Columbus is an im 
 mensely overrated man. If you come down 
 to it, what did he do ? He went out to sea 
 in a ship and sailed for three months, and 
 when he least expected it ran slam-bang up 
 against the Western Hemisphere. It was 
 like shooting at a barn door with a Gatling 
 gun. He was bound to hit it sooner or 
 later." 
 
 " You don't give him any credit for tenac 
 ity of purpose or good judgment, then ?" 
 asked Mr. Brief. 
 
 " Of course I do. Plenty of it. He stuck 
 to his ship like a hero who didn't know how 
 
304 
 
 to swim. His judgment was great. He had 
 too much sense to go back to Spain without 
 any news of something, because he fully un 
 derstood that unless he had something to 
 show for the trip, there would have been a 
 great laugh on Queen Isabella for selling her 
 jewels to provide for a ninety - day yacht 
 cruise for him and a lot of common sailors, 
 which would never have done. So he kept 
 on and on, and finally some unknown lookout 
 up in the bow discovered America. Then Co 
 lumbus went home and told everybody that if 
 it hadn't been for his own eagle eye emigra 
 tion wouldn't have been invented, and world's 
 fairs would have been local institutions. Then 
 they got up a parade in which the King and 
 Queen graciously took part, and Columbus be 
 came a great man. Meanwhile the unknown 
 lookout who did discover the land was knock 
 ing about the town and thinking he was a very 
 lucky fellow to get an extra glass of grog. It 
 wasn't anything more than the absolute jus 
 tice of fate that caused the new land to be 
 named America and not Columbia. It really 
 ought to have been named after that fellow 
 up in the bow." 
 
 "But, my dear Idiot," put in the Biblio 
 maniac, "the scheme itself was Columbus's 
 
205 
 
 own. He evolved the theory that the earth 
 is round like a ball." 
 
 "To quote Mr. Pedagog " began the 
 Idiot. 
 
 " You can't quote me in your own favor," 
 snapped the School-Master. 
 
 " Wait until I have finished," said the Id 
 iot. " I was only going to quote you by say 
 ing ' Tutt !' that's all ; and so I repeat, in the 
 words of Mr. Pedagog, tutt, tutt ! Evolved 
 the theory ? Why, man, how could he help 
 evolving the theory ? There was the sun ris 
 ing in the east every morning and setting in 
 the west every night. What else was there 
 to believe ? That somebody put the sun out 
 every night, and sneaked back east with it 
 under cover of darkness ?" 
 
 " But you forget that the wise men of the 
 day laughed at his idea," said Mr. Pedagog, 
 surveying the Idiot after the fashion of a 
 man who has dealt an adversary a stinging 
 blow. 
 
 "That only proves what I have always 
 said," replied the Idiot. "Wise men can't 
 find fun in anything but stern facts. Wise 
 men always do laugh at truth. Whenever I 
 advance some new proposition, you sit up 
 there next to Mrs. Pedagog and indulge in. 
 
 19 
 
206 
 
 tutt-tutterances of the most intolerant sort. 
 If you had been one of the wise men of Co- 
 lumbus's time there isn't any doubt in my 
 mind that when Columbus said the earth 
 was round, you'd have remarked tutt, tutt, 
 in Spanish." There was silence for a minute, 
 and then the Idiot began again. "There's 
 another point about this whole business that 
 makes me tired," he said. "It only goes to 
 prove the conceit of these Europeans. Here 
 was a great continent inhabited by countless 
 people. A European comes over here and is 
 said to be the discoverer of America and is 
 glorified. Statues of him are scattered broad 
 cast all over the world. Pictures of him are 
 printed in the newspapers and magazines. 
 A dozen different varieties of portraits of 
 him are printed on postage-stamps as big as 
 circus posters and all for what? Because 
 he discovered a land that millions of Indians 
 had known about for centuries. On the oth 
 er hand, when Columbus goes back to Spain 
 several of the native Americans trust their 
 precious lives to his old tubs. One of these 
 savages must have been the first American 
 to discover Europe. Where are the statues of 
 the Indian who discovered Europe ? Where 
 are the postage-stamps showing how he looked 
 
207 
 
 on the day when Europe first struck his vis 
 ion ? Where is anybody spending a billion 
 of dollars getting up a world's fair in com 
 memoration of Lo's discovery of Europe?" 
 
 "He didn't know it was Europe," said the 
 Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " Columbus didn't, know this was Ameri 
 ca," retorted the Idiot. " In fact, Columbus 
 didn't know anything. He didn't know any 
 better than to write a letter to Queen Isabel 
 la and mail it in a keg that never turned up. 
 He didn't even know how to steer his old 
 boat into a real solid continent, instead of 
 getting ten days on the island. He was an 
 awfully wise man. He saw an island swarm 
 ing with Indians, and said, ' Why, this must 
 be India !' And worst of all, if his pictures 
 mean anything, he didn't even know enough 
 to choose his face and stick to it. Don't talk 
 Columbus to me unless you want to prove 
 that luck is the greatest factor of success." 
 
 " Ill-luck is sometimes a factor of success," 
 said Mr. Pedagog. "You are a success as 
 an Idiot, which appears to me to be extreme 
 ly unfortunate." 
 
 "I don't know about that," said the Idiot. 
 "I adapt myself to my company, and of 
 course " 
 
208 
 
 "Then you are a school - master among 
 .school-masters, a lawyer among lawyers, and 
 so forth ?" queried the Bibliomaniac. 
 
 " What are you when your company is 
 made up of widely diverse characters ?" 
 asked Mr. Brief before the Idiot had a 
 chance to reply to the Bibliomaniac's ques 
 tion. 
 
 " I try to be a widely diverse character my 
 self." 
 
 "And, trying to sit on many stools, fall 
 and become just an Idiot," said Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 " That's according to the way you look at 
 it. I put my company to the test in the cru 
 cible of my mind. I analyze the characters 
 of all about me, and whatever quality pre 
 dominates in the precipitate, that I become. 
 Thus in the presence of my employer and his 
 office-boy I become a mixture of both some 
 thing of the employer, something of an office- 
 boy. I run errands for my employer, and 
 boss the office-boy. With you gentlemen I 
 go through the same process. The Biblio 
 maniac, the School-Master, Mr. Brief, and the 
 rest of you have been cast into the crucible, 
 and I have tried to approximate the result." 
 
 "And are an Idiot," said the School-Master. 
 
 "It is your own name for me, gentlemen," 
 
'DIDN'T KNOW ENOUGH TO CHOOSE HIS OWN FACE 
 
209 
 
 returned the Idiot. "I presume you have 
 recognized your composite self, and have 
 chosen the title accordingly." 
 
 "You were a little hard on me this morn 
 ing, weren't you ?" asked the genial old gen 
 tleman who occasionally imbibed, that even 
 ing, when he and the Idiot were discussing 
 the morning's chat. "I didn't like to say 
 anything about it, but I don't think you 
 ought to have thrown me into the crucible 
 with the rest." 
 
 "I wish you had spoken," said the Idiot, 
 warmly. " It would have given me a chance 
 to say that the grain of sense that once or 
 twice a year leavens the lump of my idiocy is 
 directly due to the ingredient furnished by 
 yourself. Here's to you, old man. If you 
 and I lived alone together, what a wise man 
 I should be !" 
 
 And then the genial old gentleman went to 
 the cupboard and got out a bottle of port-wine 
 that he had been preserving in cobwebs for 
 ten years. This he opened, and as he did so 
 he said, " I've been keeping this for years, 
 my boy. It was dedicated in my youth to 
 the thirst of the first man who truly appre 
 ciated me. Take it all." 
 
210 
 
 " I'll divide with you," returned the Idiot, 
 with a smile. " For really, old fellow, I think 
 y OU a h I think you appreciate yourself as 
 much as I do." 
 
' JAMi'ORS HATE TO BE SKEN TO " 
 
XII 
 
 "I WONDER what it costs to run a flat?" 
 said the Idiot, stirring his coffee with the 
 salt-spoon a proceeding which seemed to 
 indicate that he was thinking of something 
 else. 
 
 "Don't you keep an expense account?" 
 asked the Bibliomaniac, slyly. 
 
 " Hee-hee !" laughed Mrs. Pedagog. 
 
 "First -rate joke," said the Idiot, with a 
 smile. " But really, now, I should like to 
 know for how little an apartment could be 
 run. I am interested." 
 
 Mrs. Pedagog stopped laughing at once. 
 The Idiot's words were ominous. She did 
 not always like his views, but she did like 
 his money, and she was not at all anxious to 
 lose him as a boarder. 
 
 " It's very expensive," she said, firmly. " I 
 shouldn't ever advise any one to undertake 
 living in a flat. Rents are high. Butcher 
 
212 
 
 bills are enormous, because the butchers have 
 to pay commissions, not only to the cook, so* 
 that she'll use twice as much lard as she can, 
 and give away three or four times as much 
 to the poor as she ought, but janitors have to- 
 be seen to, and elevator-boys, and all that. 
 Groceries come high for the sanre reason. 
 Oh, no ! Flat life isn't the life for anybody, 
 I say. Give me a good, first-class boarding- 
 house. Am I not right, John ?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said Mr. Pedagog. " Every 
 time. I lived in a flat once, and it was an 
 awful nuisance. Above me lived a dancing- 
 master who gave lessons at every hour of the 
 day in the room directly over my study, so 
 that I was always being disturbed at my 
 work, while below me was a music -teacher 
 who was practising all night, so that I could 
 hardly sleep. Worst of all, on the same floor 
 with me was a miserable person of convivial 
 tendencies, who always mistook my door for 
 his when he came home after midnight, and 
 who gave some quite estimable people two 
 floors below to believe that it was I, and 
 not he, who sang comic songs between three 
 and four o'clock in the morning. There has 
 not been too much love lost between the 
 Idiot and myself, but I cannot be so vin- 
 
2-13 
 
 dictive as to recommend him to live in a 
 flat." 
 
 " I can bear testimony to the same effect," 
 put in Mr. Brief, who was two weeks in ar 
 rears, and anxious to conciliate his landlady. 
 
 " Testimony to the effect that Mr. Pedagog 
 sang comic songs in the early morning ?" 
 said the Idiot. " Nonsense ! I don't be 
 lieve it. I have lived in this house for two 
 years with Mr. Pedagog, and I've never 
 heard him raise his voice in song yet." 
 
 " I didn't mean anything of the sort," re 
 torted Mr. Brief. "You know I didn't." 
 
 " Don't apologize to me," said the Idiot. 
 " Apologize to Mr. Pedagog. He is the 
 man you have wronged." 
 
 " What did he say ?" put in Mr. Pedagog, 
 with a stern look at Mr. Brief. "I didn't 
 hear what he said." 
 
 "I didn't say anything," said the lawyer, 
 " except that I could bear testimony to the 
 effect that your experience with flat life was 
 similar to mine. This young person, with 
 his customary nerve, tries to make it appear 
 that I said you sang comic songs in the early 
 morning." 
 
 " I try to do nothing of the sort," said the 
 Idiot. " I simply expressed my belief that 
 
214 
 
 in spite of what you said Mr. Pedagog was 
 innocent, and I do so because my experience 
 with him has taught me that he is not the 
 kind of man who would do that sort of 
 thing. He has neither time, voice, nor in 
 clination. He has an ear two of them, in 
 fact and an impressionable mind, but " 
 
 " Oh, tutt !" interrupted the School-Master. 
 " When I need a defender, you may spare 
 yourself the trouble of flying to my rescue." 
 
 " I know I may," said the Idiot, " but with 
 me it's a question of can and can't. I'm will 
 ing to attack you personally, but while I live 
 no other shall do so. Wherefore I tell Mr. 
 Brief plainly, and to his face, that if he says 
 you ever sang a comic song he says what is 
 not so. You might hum one, but sing it 
 never !" 
 
 " We were talking of flats, I believe," said 
 Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 " Yes," said the Idiot, " and these persons 
 have changed it from flat talk to sharp talk." 
 
 " Well, anyhow," put in Mr. Brief, " I lived 
 in a flat once, and it was anything but pleas 
 ant. I lost a case once for the simple and 
 only reason that I lived in a flat. It was a 
 case that required a great deal of strategy 
 on my part, and I invited my client to my 
 
215 
 
 home to unfold my plan of action. I got in 
 terested in the scheme as I unfolded it, and 
 spoke in my usual impassioned manner, as 
 though addressing a jury, and, would you 
 believe it, the opposing counsel happened to 
 be visiting a friend on the next floor, and my 
 eloquence floated up through the air-shaft, 
 and gave our whole plan of action away. 
 We were routed on the point we had sup 
 posed would pierce the enemy's armor and 
 lay him at our feet, for the wholly simple 
 reason that that abominable air-shaft had 
 made my strategic move a matter of public 
 knowledge." 
 
 " That's a good idea for a play," said the 
 Idiot. "A roaring farce could be built up 
 on that basis. Villain and accomplice on 
 one floor, innocent victim on floor above. 
 Plot floats up air-shaft. Innocent victim 
 overhears ; villain and accomplice say ' ha 
 ha ' for three acts and take a back seat in the 
 fourth, with a grand transformation showing 
 the conspirators in the county jail as a finale. 
 Write it up with lots of live-stock wandering 
 in and out, bring in janitors and elevator- 
 boys and butchers, show up some of the hu 
 mors of flat life, if there be any such, call it 
 A Hole in the Flat, and put it on the stage. 
 
216 
 
 Nine hundred nights is the very shortest run 
 it could have, which at fifty dollars a night 
 for the author is $45,000 in good hard dollars. 
 Mr. Poet, the idea is yours for a fiver. Say 
 the word." 
 
 "Thanks," said the Poet, with a smile ; " I'm 
 not a dramatist." 
 
 " Then I'll have to do it myself," said the 
 Idiot. " And if I do, good-bye Shakespeare." 
 
 " That's so," said Mr. Pedagog. Nothing 
 could more effectually ruin the dramatic art 
 than to have you write a play. People, see 
 ing your work, would say, here, this will nev 
 er do. The stage must be discouraged at all 
 costs. A hypocrite throws the ministry into 
 disgrace, an ignoramus brings shame upon 
 education, and an unpopular lawyer gives the 
 bar a bad name. I think you are just the 
 man to ruin Shakespeare." 
 
 " Then I'll give up my ambition to become 
 a playwright and stick to idiocy," said the 
 Idiot. "But to come back to flats. Your 
 feeling in regard to them is entirely different 
 from that of a friend of mine, who has lived 
 in one for ten years. He thinks flat life is 
 ideal. His children can't fall down-stairs, be 
 cause there aren't any stairs to fall down. 
 His roof never leaks, because he hasn't any 
 
"MY ELOQUENCE FLOATED UP THE AIR SHAFT " 
 
217 
 
 roof to leak ; and when he and his family 
 want to go off anywhere, all he has to do is 
 to lock his front door and go. Burglars 
 never climb into his front window, because 
 they are all eight flights up. Damp cellars 
 don't trouble him, because they are too far 
 down to do him any injury, even if they over 
 flow. The cares of house-keeping are reduced 
 to a minimum. His cook doesn't spend all 
 her time in the front area flirting with the 
 postman, because there isn't any front area 
 to his flat ; and in a social way his wife is 
 most delightfully situated, because most of 
 her friends live in the same building, and in 
 stead of having to hire a carriage to go calling 
 in, all she has to do is to take the elevator 
 and sro from one floor to another. If he 
 
 O 
 
 pines for a change of scene, he is high enough 
 up in the air to get it by looking out of his 
 windows, over the tops of other buildings, 
 into the green fields to the north, or looking 
 westward into the State of New Jersey. In 
 stead of taking a drive through the Park, or 
 a walk, all he and his wife need to do is to 
 take a telescope and follow some little sylvan 
 path with their eyes. Then, as for expense, 
 he finds that he saves money by means of a 
 co-operative scheme. For instance, if he 
 
218 
 
 wants shad for dinner, and he and his wife 
 cannot eat a whole one, he goes shares on the 
 shad and its cost with his neighbors above 
 and below." 
 
 " Yes, and his neighbors above and below 
 borrow tea and eggs and butter and ice and 
 other things whenever they run short, so that 
 in that way he loses all he saves," said Mr. 
 Pedagog, resolved not to give in. 
 
 " He does if he isn't smart," said the Idiot. 
 " I thought of that myself, and asked him 
 about it, and he told me that he kept ac 
 count of all that, and always made it a point 
 after some neighbor had borrowed two pounds 
 of butter from him to send in before the week 
 was over and borrow three pounds of butter 
 from the neighbor. So far his books show 
 that he is sixteen pounds of butter, seven 
 pounds of tea, one bottle of vanilla extract, 
 and a ton of ice ahead of the whole house. 
 He is six eggs and a box of matches be 
 hind in his egg and match account, but under 
 the circumstances I think he can afford it." 
 
 " But," said Mrs. Pedagog, anxious to know 
 the worst, " why er why are you so inter 
 ested ?" 
 
 "Well," said the Idiot, slowly, " I er I 
 am contemplating a change, Mrs. Pedagog 
 
219 
 
 a change that would fill me I say it sincere 
 ly, too with regret if " The Idiot paused 
 a minute, and his eye swept fondly about the 
 table. His voice was getting a little husky 
 too, Mr. Whitechoker noticed. " It would 
 fill me with regret, I say, if it were not that 
 in taking up house-keeping I am I am to 
 have the assistance of a better-half." 
 
 " What ?" cried the Bibliomaniac. " You ? 
 You are going to be to be married ?" 
 
 "Why not?" said the Idiot. "Imitation 
 is the sincerest flattery. Mr. Pedagog mar 
 ries, and I am going to flatter him as sincere 
 ly as I can by following in his footsteps." 
 
 " May I may we ask to whom ?" asked 
 Mrs. Pedagog, softly. 
 
 " Certainly," said the Idiot. " To Mr. Bar 
 low's daughter. Mr. Barlow is or was 
 my employer." 
 
 " Was ? Is he not now ? Are you going 
 out of business ?" asked Mr. Pedagog. 
 
 "No ; but, you see, when I went to see 
 Mr. Barlow in the matter, he told me that he 
 liked me very much, and he had no doubt I 
 would make a good husband for his daugh 
 ter, but, after all, he added that I was noth 
 ing but a confidential clerk on a small salary, 
 and he thought his daughter could do better." 
 
220 
 
 " She couldn't find a better fellow, Mr. 
 Idiot," said Mrs. Pedagog, and Mr. Pedagog 
 rose to the occasion by nodding his entire 
 acquiescence in the statement. 
 
 "Thank you very much," said the Idiot." 
 " That was precisely what I told Mr. Barlow, 
 and I suggested a scheme to him by which 
 his sole objection could be got around." 
 
 " You would start in business for yourself ?" 
 said Mr. Whitechoker. 
 
 " In a sense, yes," said the Idiot. " Only 
 the way I put it was that a good confidential 
 clerk would make a good partner for him, 
 and he, after thinking it over, thought I was 
 right." 
 
 " It certainly was a characteristically novel 
 way out of the dilemma," said Mr. Brief, 
 with a smile. 
 
 "I thought so myself, and so did he, so it 
 was all arranged. On the 1st of next month 
 I enter the firm, and on the 15th I am ah 
 to be married." 
 
 The company warmly congratulated the 
 Idiot upon his good - fortune, and he shortly 
 left the room, more overcome by their felici 
 tations than he had been by their arguments 
 in the past. 
 
 The few days left passed quickly by, and 
 
221 
 
 there came a breakfast at Mrs. Pedagog's 
 house that was a mixture of joy and sadness 
 joy for his happiness, sadness that that 
 table should know the Idiot no more. 
 
 Among the wedding-gifts was a handsome 
 ly bound series of volumes, including a cy 
 clopaedia, a dictionary, and a little tome of 
 poems, the first output of the Poet. These 
 came together, with a card inscribed, " From 
 your Friends of the Breakfast Table," of 
 whom the Idiot said, when Mrs. Idiot asked 
 for information : 
 
 " They, my dear, next to yourself and my 
 parents, are the dearest friends I ever had. 
 We must have them up to breakfast some 
 morning." 
 
 "Breakfast ?" queried Mrs. Idiot. 
 
 "Yes, my dear," he replied, simply. "I 
 ehould be afraid to meet them at any other 
 meal. I am always at my best at breakfast, 
 and they well, they never are." 
 
 THE END 
 
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
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