"Of course they do," said I, "but they don't look like _that_! The women that ride in Evanston Avenue wear dresses, the same as other women wear. This strange object (which you declare is a woman) wears pants!" "Those ain't pants," said Mr. Robbins; "those are bloomers." "I don't care what you call them," said I, "they 're pants just the same, and, what is more, very ill-fitting pants at that!" "That," said Mr. Robbins, "is the new style of bicycle attire for the feminine sex. Shocking as it may appear to you, it is much more ample than the costume which I found to be popular among the female bicyclists of France during my visit to that country last summer." "But you don't mean to tell me," said I, "that women make a practice of riding up and down Clarendon Avenue in pants!" "Certainly, I do," said Mr. Robbins. "We do things in style over this way. Evanston Avenue is a century behind the times. Oh, you 'll learn a lot of things when you get moved over here into your new house." "But I 'll not stand it!" I cried. "I 'll inform the police and I 'll have the law on these brazen creatures. What would Alice say! And what would become of Fanny and of little Josephine if they were brought up under the demoralizing influences of spectacles like that! Do you suppose I 'm going to have Galileo and Herschel corrupted? And little Erasmus--shall his pure, innocent mind be contaminated? Never, neighbor Robbins, never!" But Mr. Robbins did not seem to view the matter at all as I did. It was evident that his long connection with the circus had calloused the sensibility of his perceptive faculties. He was inclined to jeer at what he termed my prudishness. I was glad to be back in Evanston Avenue once more, secure in an atmosphere of propriety. It was several hours, however, before I could get my mind away from thoughts of that woman in pants, so profoundly had her appearance in that strangely abbreviated costume shocked me. XVII OUR DEVICES FOR ECONOMIZING Unless you want to render yourself liable to an attack of nervous prostration you should never watch a skilful workman nailing on lath. It is the most bewildering spectacle you can conceive of. I watched it for twenty minutes one day--it was when they were lathing the big front room downstairs, the library, and my brain began to reel as if I were intoxicated. I actually believe that if Uncle Si had not led me away and set me down under one of the willow-trees in the front yard I should have had a spell of sickness, and may be even now had been confined in the incurable ward of a lunatic asylum. I can't understand how they do it so accurately and so fast and with such apparent ease. The whole proceeding is so fascinating that I really believe that, next to proficiency in the science of astronomy, I should like to be an expert at nailing lath. In every line of mechanics my education has been grievously neglected.