Yet I am sorry for John. He was once as I am. What a life is his now. Beatrice is a dear, and I will allow no one to say a word against her, but she doesn't understand that trousers must be folded, not hung; that a collar which has once been a collar can never be opened out and turned into a cuff (supposing one wore cuffs); and that a school eleven blazer, even if it happens to be pink, must not be cut down into a dressing-jacket for the little one. Poor John! Yes, I am glad now that he has that shirt of mine. It is perhaps a _little_ too bright for his complexion, perhaps he has not _quite_ the air to carry it off; but I am glad that it is his. Now I think of it I have a tie and a pair of socks that would go well with it; and even _William_--can I part with _William_?--yes, he shall have _William_. Oh, I see that I must be kind to John. Dear Beatrice! I wonder when I shall have everything straight again. MEDES AND PERSIANS I have already said that I am not afraid of my housekeeper, so there is no need for me to say it again. There are other motives than fear which prevent a man from arguing with housekeepers; dislike of conversation with his intellectual inferiors may be one, the sporting instinct is certainly another. If one is to play "Medes and Persians" properly, one must be a sportsman about it. Of course, I could say right out to her "Do this," and she might do it. Or she could say right out to me, "Do that," and I would reply, "Don't be absurd." But that wouldn't be the game. As I play it, a "Mede" is a law which _she_ lays down, and to which (after many a struggle) in the end I submit; a "Persian" is a law which _I_ lay down, and to which ... after many a struggle ... in the end ... (when it is too late).... Well, there are many Medes, but so far I have only scored one Persian of note. The first Mede was established last winter. For many weeks I had opened my bedroom door of a morning to find a small jug of cold water on the mat outside. The thing puzzled me. What do I want with a small jug of cold water, I asked myself, when I have quite enough in the bath as it is? Various happy thoughts occurred to me--as that it was lucky, that it collected the germs, or (who knows?) indicated a wife with five thousand a year--but it was a month before the real solution flashed across my mind. "Perhaps," I said, "it was hot once. But," I added, "it must have been a long time ago." The discovery upset me a good deal. In the first place, it is annoying suddenly to have all one's hopes of a rich wife and protection from disease dashed to the ground; in the second, I object to anybody but a relation interfering with my moral character. Here was a comparative stranger trying to instil the habit of early rising into me by leaving shaving-water outside the door at three A.M. Was this a thing to be taken lying down?