"What have you been chasing, Mr. Idiot?" asked the Doctor. "Birds or the fast-flitting dollar?" "Flats," said the Idiot. "I didn't know you Wall Street people needed to hunt flats," said the Bibliomaniac. "I thought they just walked into your offices and presented themselves for skinning." "I don't mean the flats we live on," explained the Idiot. "It's the flats we live in that I have been after." The landlady looked up inquiringly. Mr. Idiot's announcement sounded ominous. "To my mind, flat-hunting," the Idiot continued, "is one of the most interesting branches of sport. It involves quite as much uncertainty as the pursuit of the whirring partridge; your game is quite as difficult to lure as the speckled trout darting hither and yon in the grassy pool; it involves no shedding of innocent blood, as in the case of a ride across-country with a pack in full pursuit of the fox; and strikes me as possessing greater dignity than running forty miles through the cabbage-patches of Long Island in search of a bag of ainse seed. When the sporting instinct arises in my soul and reaches that full-tide where nothing short of action will hold it in control, I never think of starting for Maine to shoot the festive moose, nor do I squander my limited resources on a foggy hunt for the elusive canvasback in the Maryland marshes. I just go to the nearest cab-stand, strike a bargain with Mr. Jehu for an afternoon's use of his hansom, and go around the town hunting flats. It requires very little previous preparation; it involves no prolonged absences from home; you do not need rubber boots unless you propose to investigate the cellars or intend to go far afield into the suburban boroughs of this great city; and is in all ways pleasant, interesting, and, I may say, educational." "Educational, eh?" laughed the Bibliomaniac. "Some people have queer ideas of what is educational. I must say I fail to see anything particularly instructive in flat-hunting."