She smilingly complied at once with my request and withdrew, bidding me a good night, while I sat again, feeling great contentment. I had now discovered that a man, if lucky, might have his socks darned without being compelled to take a wife unto himself, with all the uncomfortable appurtenances thereof. It was a new and cheering revelation. No sooner had I begun to cogitate over the exquisiteness of my fate than I was disturbed again, however. Frieda partly obeyed conventionality by knocking upon my open door and walking in. "Frances Dupont wants me to thank you ever so much for the pretty roses, David," she told me. "It was really very kind of you to bring them. I have snipped the stems and changed the water and put them on the window sill for the night." "Yes," I explained, "I had to change that twenty-dollar bill, and there was a hungry-looking man at the corner of Fourteenth Street, who offered them to me for a quarter. So we had to go over to the cigar store to get the note broken up into elementals. The fellow really looked as if he needed money a great deal more than roses, so I gave him a dollar." "But then why didn't you take a dollar's worth of flowers?" asked Frieda, high-priestess of the poetic brush, who is a practical woman, if ever there was one. "Never thought of it," I acknowledged; "besides, he had only three bunches left." "And so you didn't want to clean out his stock in trade. Never mind, Dave, it was very sweet of you." She hurried away, and, finally, I heard the front door closing, after which I made a clean copy of that dog story, flattering myself that it had turned out rather neatly. It was finished at two o'clock, and I went to bed. The next morning was a Sunday. I dawdled at length over my dressing and sallied forth at eleven, after Mrs. Milliken had knocked at my door twice to know if she could make the room. If I were an Edison, I should invent an automatic room-making and womanless contrivance. These great men, after all, do little that is truly useful and practical. My neighbor's door was open. I coughed somewhat emphatically, after which I discreetly knocked upon the doorframe. "Come in, Mr. Cole," said a cheery, but slightly husky, voice. "Come in and look at the darling." "That was my purpose, Madame Dupont," I said most veraciously. "Eulalie has gone out again," I was informed, after the infant had been duly exhibited, as it slept with its two fists tightly closed. "She has gone for a box of Graham crackers and the Sunday paper." I smiled, civilly, and opined that the day's heat would not be so oppressing. "Don't you want to sit down for a moment?" she asked me. I was about to obey, when I heard the elephantine step of the washerwoman's sister, who entered, bearing her parcels and the _Courrier des Etats Unis_. "Excuse me for just a second," said the husky little voice. I bowed and looked out of the window, upon yards where I caught the cheery note of a blooming wisteria.