The conspirators 25 "'Weren't your ears long enough?'" 33 "'The corks popped to some purpose last night'" 37 "'If you could spare so little as one flame'" 43 The school-master as a cooler 47 "'Reading the Sunday newspapers'" 51 Bobbo 55 Wooing the Muse 67 "'He gave up jokes'" 71 "'A little garden of my own, where I could raise an occasional can of tomatoes'" 75 "'A hind-quarter of lamb gambolling about its native heath'" 77 "'The gladsome click of the lawn-mower'" 80 "'You don't mean to say that you write for the papers?'" 85 "'We wooed the self-same maid'" 87 Curing insomnia 91 "Holding his plate up to the light" 97 "'I believe you'd blow out the gas in your bed-room'" 101 "'His fairy stories were told him in words of ten syllables'" 105 "'I thought my father a mean-spirited assassin'" 109 "'Mrs. S. brought him to the point of proposing'" 115 "'Hoorah!' cried the Idiot, grasping Mr. Pedagog by the hand" 119 [Illustration: Coffee and Repartee] I 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 intentions, and who for that reason occupied the chair nearest the lady's heart, folded up the morning paper, and placing it under him so that no one else could get it, observed, quite genially 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 his "views." "In fact, I was very dry. 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?" queried the landlady, 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.