"Ah!" said the Idiot. "The merry ha-ha, eh? All right, Mary. That is for the present sufficient evidence that your conscience is clear on this very important matter. As for the potatoes, we will eat them not exactly under protest, but with a distinctly announced proviso in advance that we assume that they have qualified themselves for admission into a union stomach. I hesitate to think of what will happen in my interior department if Murphy is deceiving us." Whereupon the Idiot came into possession of a goodly portion of the stewed potatoes, and Mary fled to the kitchen, where she informed the presiding genius of the range that the young gentleman was crazier than ever. "He's talkin' about the unions, now, Bridget," said she. "Is he agin 'em?" demanded Bridget, with a glitter in her eye. "No, he's for 'em; he wouldn't even drink milk from a non-union cow," said Mary. "He's a foine gintleman," said Bridget. "Oi'll make his waffles a soize larger." Meanwhile the Bibliomaniac had chosen to reflect seriously upon the Idiot's intelligence for his approval of unions. "They are responsible for pretty nearly all the trouble there is at the present moment," he snapped out, angrily. "Oh, go along with you," retorted the Idiot. "The trouble we have these days, like all the rest of the troubles of the past, go right back to that old original non-union apple that Eve ate and Adam got the core of. You know that as well as I do. Even Adam and Eve, untutored children of nature though they were, saw it right off, and organized a union on the spot, which has in the course of centuries proven the most beneficent institution of the ages. With all due respect to the character of this dwelling-place of ours--a home for single gentlemen--the union is the thing. If you don't belong to one you may be tremendously independent, but you're blooming lonesome." "The matrimonial union," smiled Mrs. Pedagog, "is indeed a blessed institution, and, having been married twice, I can testify from experience; but, truly, Mr. Idiot, I wish you wouldn't put notions into Mary's head about the other kind. I should be sorry if she were to join that housemaid's union we hear so much about. I have trouble enough now with my domestic help without having a walking delegate on my hands as well."