There's Mrs. Stubb, for instance. You know her husband likes an occasional quiet game with the boys--the trouble is he is too confiding. That sort of people always run up against a buzz saw for their pains. "Maria," he said, penitently, one morning at breakfast, "last night I played poker and"---- "Played poker!" interrupted Mrs. Stubb. "How dare you spend your money gambling, sir!" [Illustration] "As I was saying, I played poker and won enough to buy you a set of furs"---- "You did? Oh, John, you are so good! I knew those sharps could not get the best of you." "And just as I was about to quit I dropped it all and fifty more." "You brute! To think I should have married a gambler!" I'm really sorry for Stubb. He's a good fellow in the main, too, though somewhat henpecked at home. You see he's at the head of a big syndicate, and lately the rumor went around that they might sell out if the right customer turned up. I chanced to know this, and believed I could bring in a man who would pay their price. It turned out that he also represented a company. "Well," said Stubb, finally, "our price is just $150,000, not one cent less." [Illustration: GREAT OPPORTUNITY! BARGAIN! $149,999.99 MARKED DOWN FROM $150,000!!!] "Make it just that much less," suggested the promotor, "and I think we can cinch the deal." "How do you mean?" "Make it $149,999.99. The head of our syndicate is a woman." Stubb always prided himself on what he was pleased to call his wonderful gift of reading character. I've often wondered how such a genius ever came to make such a mistake before he married. But then love, they say, is blind. And like Rip Van Winkle's drink, that one didn't count. To tell you the truth he was a pretty good hand at guessing character, and I've known him to tell five out of six men's occupation or trade just by keen analysis of their appearances and actions. [Illustration] Of course Stubb went in for reading all such books as Sherlock Holmes. "After all," he said to me one day as we rode in a Broadway car, "it is really a very simple thing; requires nothing but close observation. "For instance, it is easy to tell a man's occupation. "His facial expression, his actions, even his dress, are stamped by his daily work. [Illustration: NO TALKING ALLOWED] "You see that man sitting opposite us? Well, I am just as sure as though he had told me that he is a barber." "You are mistaken," I replied, quickly. "That man is a butcher." "Impossible!" exclaimed Stubb. "You never saw a butcher with slim, white hands, like his?" "Perhaps not," I admitted, shaking my head, "but he is a butcher just the same." "How do you know he is?" "How do I know? Faith, I have very good reasons for persisting in my assertions, since the scoundrel shaved me once." Our last servant girl is a daisy. Only yesterday morning I heard my wife ask her why she left the alarm-clock on the kitchen table all night alongside the buckwheat batter. [Illustration]