one night he fell through into his neighbor's bath-tub. Of course, that sort of thing promotes sociability; but for a home most people want just a little privacy. And so the list runs on. You would really be astonished at the great variety of discomfortable dwelling-places that people build. Such high-art decorations as you encounter--purple friezes surmounting yellow dadoes; dragons peeping out of fruit-baskets; idealized tomatoes in full bloom chasing one another all around the bedroom walls. Then the architectural inconveniences they present with their best bedrooms opening into the kitchen; their parlors with marble wash-stands with running water in the corner; their libraries fitted up with marvellous steam-radiators and china-closets, and their kitchens so small that the fire in the range scorches the wall opposite, and over which nothing but an asbestos cook, with a figure like a third rail, could preside. And, best of all, there are the janitors! Why, Mr. Bib, the study of the janitor and his habits alone is worthy of the life-long attention of the best entomologist that ever lived--and yet you say there is nothing educational in flat-hunting." "Oh, well," said the Bibliomaniac, "I meant for me. There are a lot of things that would be educational to you that I should regard as symptomatic of profound ignorance. Everything is relative in this world." "That is true," said the Idiot; "and that is why every April 1st I go out and gloat over the miseries of the flat-dwellers. As long as I can do that I am happy in my little cubby-hole under Mrs. Pedagog's hospitable roof." "Ah! I am glad to hear you say that," said Mrs. Pedagog. "I was a bit fearful, Mr. Idiot, that you had it in mind to move away from us." "No indeed, Mrs. Pedagog," replied the Idiot, rising from the table. "You need have no fear of that. You couldn't get me out of here with a crow-bar. If I did not have entire confidence in your lovely house and yourself, you don't suppose I would permit myself to get three months behind in my board, do you?" X THE HOUSEMAID'S UNION "Potatoes, sir?" said Mary, the waitress at Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog's High-Class Home for Single Gentlemen, stopping behind the Idiot's chair and addressing the back of his neck in the usual boarding-house fashion. "Yes, I want some potatoes, Mary; but before I take them," the Idiot replied, "I must first ascertain whether or not you wear the union label, and what is the exact status also of the potatoes. My principles are such that I cannot permit a non-union housemaid to help me to a scab potato, whereas, if you belong to the sisterhood, and our stewed friend Murphy here has been raised upon a union farm, then, indeed, do I wish not only one potato but many." Mary's reply was a giggle.