Such a man came into my house the other day. I call it my house, but it really seems to belong to a number of large people who walk in and out and shift packing-cases and splash paint and tramp heavily into the bathroom about 8.30 A.M. when I am trying to get off to sleep. They have also dug a large moat right through the lawn and the garden-path, which rather spoils the appearance of these places, though it is nice to be able to pull up the drawbridge at night and feel that one is safe from burglars. Anyhow, whether it is my house or theirs, the fact remains that the electric-bells were wrong. The man of whom I am speaking lives next-door, and he came in and pointed this out. "It is not much use having electric-bells," he said, "that don't ring." I might have argued this point. I might have said that to press the button of a bell that does not ring gives one time to reflect on whether one really wants the thing one rang for, and thereafter on the whole vanity of human wishes, and so inculcates patience and self-discipline. It is quite possible that an Eastern _yogi_ might spend many years of beneficial calm pressing the buttons of bells that do not ring. But I replied rather weakly, "No, I suppose not." "I'll soon put that right for you," he said cheerily, and about five minutes later he asked me to press one of the buttons, and there was a loud tinkling noise. It seemed a pity that at the moment when the bell did happen to ring there should be nobody to come and answer it. "Whatever did you do to them?" I asked. "It only needed a little water," he said, and I had hard work to suppress my admiration. The very morning before, feeling that I ought to take a hand in all this practical work that was going on about the place, I had filled a large watering-can that I found lying about and wetted some things which someone had stuck into the garden. I have a kind of idea that they were carrots, but they may have been maiden-hair ferns. Somehow it had never occurred to me for a moment to go and water the electric bells. Almost immediately afterwards this man discovered that all the knives in the kitchen were blunt and went and fetched some kind of private grindstone and sharpened them, and then told me that the apple-trees ought to be grease-banded, which I thought was a thing one only did to engines. And, when he had brought a hammer and some nails and put together a large bookcase which had collapsed as soon as _The Outline of History_ was put on to it (I should like to know whether Canon BARNES can explain _that_), I was obliged to ask him to stop, in case the tramping men should see him and strike immediately for fear of the dilution of labour.