_The Tutti-Frutti Tree so bright,_ _It gives me fruit with all its might,_ _Apples, peaches, pears and quinces,_ _I’m sure we should all be happy as princes._ It’s quite absurd, of course, but just suppose the Tree of Knowledge in that First Garden has been a Tutti-Frutti Tree instead of an Apple Tree! With seven separate kinds of fruit to choose from, all equally forbidden and, for that reason, equally desirable, how could Eve ever have decided which one to pluck? And with Eve’s hesitation Sin would have been lost to the world! Let us give thanks that the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was _not_ a Tutti-Frutti Tree. [Illustration] THOSE BILL-BOARDS Every now and again, generally when the warm weather is upon us, somebody or other starts a heated discussion about something that is of no particular interest to anybody. This time it is Mr. Joseph Pennell, the artist, who wails and gnashes his pen about the terrible bill-board and advertising pictures that deface the public buildings and thoroughfares of American cities and the public scenery of the American countryside. If my opinion were asked I should be tempted to quote the gentle answer with which the late William D. Howells was wont to turn away argument, and say to Mr. Pennell, “I think perhaps you are partly right.” But since I am not on Mr. Pennell’s list of great American artists, a list, by the way that contains only two names, I am free to say what I really think, and that is that if the dear old familiar “Ads” were suddenly to disappear from the streets and cars, I should miss them very much. Perhaps I have acquired a taste for them as the dweller near a street railroad first endures, then tolerates, and at last becomes so completely habituated to the roaring of wheels and the clang of metal that he is unable to sleep without their soothing lullaby. Soothing—that’s what they are, these advertising pictures. They soften the underground torment of travel in the Subway, they take the place of the scenery which beguiles the tedium of ordinary travel, and at least they are, as a rule, more interesting to contemplate than the people in the opposite seat. Those people are strangers, the people in the advertisement panels are, many of them, old friends, friends met in other cars in other cities. Mr. Pennell no doubt would like to see them thrown off the train, but I am always glad to meet them again, and to some of them, with whom I have a sort of informal bowing acquaintance, I mentally take off my hat. One amiable gentleman in particular I always look for and hail with delight when I find myself sitting opposite to him. He is an Italian, I take it, from his appearance, and from Naples, to judge by his accent, which, though I have never heard his voice, is depicted as plainly as the nose on his face.