“Sans bathing suit and sans modesty, Adam was taking a sun bath on the beach, looking longingly over the gates of Eden at the wide world outside when Landlord Darwin appeared. “‘Front!’ came the command. “Adam tried to put on a bold front, but as his linen was in the wash and he had never been bell-boy in a hotel, he failed miserably. He blushed at the exposure and was mercifully covered with confusion. “‘I may as well tell the naked truth,’ he confessed. ‘I’ve been swimming, and the woman thou gavest me did steal my clothes, saying that to be in style she must have a tailor-made suit.’ “So Eve became the original new woman and ever since then the Edenless Adams have called marriage a failure whenever they couldn’t lay the blame on the woman. And Eve—well, she can make apple pies as good as she ever did!” “But that green apple gave Mother Eve a belly ache,” ejaculated Cain, “and I came to deliver her. She has since said that wasn’t the last time I gave her a pain, but one can excuse her using slang after associating with such a fabulistic personage as Æsop. “You would have lacerated laughter could you have seen Dad when the Ichthyosaurus—the mother-in-Latin of the stork—brought me to Eden. The chimney wasn’t large enough for the reptile relic of the Mesozoic age to crawl down, so it carelessly dropped me onto the stomach of the astonished Father Adam, breaking what has since been known as the floating rib. From that accident arose the legend that woman was made of the crookedest part of man, which was the reason she couldn’t keep him straight. “Eve welcomed me all right, for a mother takes to babies and goo goo talk as naturally as ducks take to water, but Adam felt queer—out of place; he didn’t quite understand the thing and wondered why I hadn’t been born full-grown. He didn’t know whether I was a new kind of breakfast food, a condensed milk advertisement, or an alarm clock sent to wake him up early in the morning. Most of the time I was cutting my teeth, Dad was sulking out in the backyard under the apple tree with a pretty well-developed case of green eye and the blues. Occasionally he would come in and try to smile as he peeped over in the couch of fig leaves. Then Eve would take me up and hand me to Papa. He took me as if he were afraid I would bite and held me out at arm’s length as if he thought the thing might melt and ruin his full dress suit, which consisted of a smile minus the fig leaves. I understand that evening dress has differed little from that day to this.” “I confess that I am lamentably ignorant on the subject, but I find Henry James more lucid than the naturalists who wrote ‘Wild Men I Have Known.’ What was the origin of species?” “With all deference to Darwin and the rest,” explained Cain, “methinks it was an apple seed!” And being the first seed of the woman, Cain certainly ought to know! ELECTION DAY BEYOND THE STYX. CHAPTER X.