We had about six hundred nasturtium seeds in envelopes bearing totally misleading pictures of what they will look like. I filled a box with rough earth and then pulverized it with an ice-pick. Then I stuck holes with my finger and put one seed in each hole. After my fingernails had developed into a screaming argument for the use of soap, my wife discovered that I had planted them too deep. "You'll have to take them all out and plant them again," she said. I scratched my head, standing thoughtfully on one foot the while. "I will not," I said. "I will just scrape an inch of dirt off the top!" When it comes to inventing labor-saving devices, I'm a mental gatling. Nothing happened to those nasturtium seeds for five days. On the morning of the fifth day I heard a scream from my wife and rushed downstairs, to find her leaning over the nasturtium box. "Oooooeeee! Lookee!" she shrieked. I looked. Then I yelled. I grabbed her in both arms and danced around the conservatory like a plumb fool. Then we both ran back and leaned over the box, and raved. There were half a dozen little greenish-white stalks sticking out, each top curved over like a dear little ingrowing nail. "Aren't they cute!" exclaimed my wife. "Cute!" I said, in disgust. "Why, my dear, they're not cute--they're wonderful!" I pushed the window up a little to give them air. My wife caught my arm excitedly and pulled it down again. "You mustn't do that," she said; "you'll freeze the sprouts!" "Sprouts," I said, "come on potatoes, onions, cabbages, and beets. These are not sprouts; they are bulbs!" She said not a word, but got a book and showed me a picture of a bulb--a tulip bulb. "That," she said, "is a bulb. These are sprouts." If there's anything that makes home unhappy, it's that atmosphere of superiority in a woman. I tried to point out to her that she couldn't believe everything she saw in a book. "History," I said, "is continually changing. That may have been a bulb at the time of publication, but----" It was no use. I had to give in. She had the dots on Uncle Henry for sure, but you've got to give it to me--you've just got to. How was this one? Listen: "Of course they're sprouts. I knew they were sprouts all the time. I was just trying to catch you." SIXTH PERIOD There are four little disconnected adventures in my notes that must find a place somewhere, and so I have decided to bunch them all in this chapter. If you'll draw your chair up closer, I'll give them to you in order: First--The Adventure of the Prospective Tenant. Second--The Adventure of the Mysterious Push Button. Third--The Adventure of the Reluctant Cow. Fourth--The Adventure of the Nasty Little Fat Robin. Now for the Adventure of the Prospective Tenant.