We own that there was something in the proposed arrangement which dismayed us. We also were married, and what would our wife have said had we proposed that a contributor,--even a contributor not red-nosed and seething with gin,--that any best-disciplined contributor should be invited to write an article within the precincts of our sanctum? We could not bring ourselves to believe that Mr. Grimes would authorise the proposition. There is something holy about the bed-room of a married couple; and there would be a special desecration in the continued presence of Mr. Julius Mackenzie. We thought it better that we should explain something of all this to her. “Do you know,” we said, “this seems to be hardly prudent?” “Why not prudent?” she asked. “Up in your bed-room, you know! Mr. Grimes will be sure to dislike it.” “What,--John! Not he. I know what you’re a-thinking of, Mr. ----,” she said. “But we’re different in our ways than what you are. Things to us are only just what they are. We haven’t time, nor yet money, nor perhaps edication, for seemings and thinkings as you have. If you was travelling out amongst the wild Injeans, you’d ask any one to have a bit in your bed-room as soon as look at ’em, if you’d got a bit for ’em to eat. We’re travelling among wild Injeans all our lives, and a bed-room aint no more to us than any other room. Mackenzie shall come up here, and I’ll have the table fixed for him, just there by the window.” I hadn’t another word to say to her, and I could not keep myself from thinking for many an hour afterwards, whether it may not be a good thing for men, and for women also, to believe that they are always travelling among wild Indians. When we went down Mr. Grimes himself was in the little parlour. He did not seem at all surprised at seeing his wife enter the room from above accompanied by a stranger. She at once began her story, and told the arrangement which she proposed,--which she did, as I observed, without any actual request for his sanction. Looking at Mr. Grimes’s face, I thought that he did not quite like it; but he accepted it, almost without a word, scratching his head and raising his eyebrows. “You know, John, he could no more do it at home than he could fly,” said Mrs. Grimes. “Who said he could do it at home?” “And he couldn’t do it in the tap-room;--could he? If so, there aint no other place, and so that’s settled.” John Grimes again scratched his head, and the matter was settled. Before we left the house Mackenzie himself came in, and was told in our presence of the accommodation which was to be prepared for him. “It’s just like you, Mrs. Grimes,” was all he said in the way of thanks. Then Mrs. Grimes made her bargain with him somewhat sternly. He should have the room for five hours a day,--ten till three, or twelve till five; but he must settle which, and then stick to his hours. “And I won’t have nothing up there in the way of drink,” said John Grimes.