Ever seen a great, grown man play the baby act? Talk about a woman in a cryin' spell! That ain't a marker to watchin' a six-foot, one hundred and eighty-pound free citizen droop his mouth corners and slump his shoulders over nothin' at all. Course, I don't always feel like a hickey boy myself, and I'll admit there are times when the rosy tints get a little clouded up; but I has my own way of workin' out of such spells before the mullygrubs turns my gray matter into curdled milk. But Jarvis, he's as blue as a rainy Monday with the wash all in soak. In the first place, he's been alone for nearly three whole weeks, the women folks all bein' abroad, and it's a new experience for him. Think of that awful calamity happenin' to a man of his size! Seems that before he was married he'd always carted mother and sister around, under the idea that he was lookin' out for them, when as a matter of fact they was the ones that was lookin' after him. Then Mrs. Jarvis, Lady Evelyn that was, takes him in hand and makes him more helpless than ever. He never mistrusts how much he's been mollycoddled, until he finds himself with nobody but a valet, a housekeeper, and seventeen assorted servants to help him along in the struggle for existence. His first move after the ladies have sailed is to smoke until his tongue feels like a pussycat's back, eat his lonesome meals at lunch-counter clip, and work himself into a mild bilious state. That makes him a little cranky with the help, and, as there's no one around to smooth 'em out, the cook and half a dozen maids leaves in a bunch. His head coachman goes off on a bat, the housekeeper skips out to Ohio to bury an aunt, and the domestic gear at Blenmont gets to runnin' about as smooth as a flat wheel trolley car on a new roadbed. To finish off the horrible situation, Jarvis has had a misunderstandin' with a landscape architect that he'd engaged to do things to the grounds. Jarvis had planned to plant a swan lake in the front yard; but the landscaper points out that it can't be done because there's a hill in the way. "To be sure," says Jarvis, "these are little things; but I've been worrying over them until--until---- Well, I'm in bad shape, Shorty." "It's a wonder you're still alive," says I. "Don't!" says he, groanin'. "It is too serious a matter. Perhaps you don't know it, but I had an uncle that drank himself to death." "Huh!" says I. "'Most everybody has had an uncle of that kind." "And one of my cousins," Jarvis goes on, lowerin' his voice and lookin' around cautious, "shot himself--in the head!" "Eh?" says I. And then I begun to get a glimmer of what he was drivin' at. "What! You don't mean that you were thinkin' of--of----" He groans again and nods his head.