"It is a wonderful system," smiled Mr. Brief. "I wonder it is not adopted everywhere." "It is, pretty much," said the Idiot. "Most hired men do the same thing. I don't think Mike differs radically from others of his kind. Of course, there are exceptions. My neighbor Jimpsonberry, for instance, has a man who is so infernally unrestful that he makes everybody tired. He is up every morning mowing Jimpsonberry's lawn at five o'clock, waking up every sleepy soul within ear-shot with the incessant and disturbing clicking of his machine. Mike would never think of making such a nuisance of himself. Furthermore, Jimpsonberry's lawn is kept so close-cropped that the grass doesn't get any chance, and in the heat of midsummer turns to a dull brick-red." After a pause, during which the company seemed to be deeply cogitating the philosophical bearing of the subject under discussion, the Idiot resumed: "There is another aspect of this matter," he said, "which Jimpsonberry's man brings to my mind. You know as well as I do that heat is contagious. If you feel as cool as a cucumber, and then all of a sudden see somebody who is dripping with perspiration and looking for all the world like a human kettle simmering on a kitchen-range, you begin to simmer yourself. It is mere sympathy, of course, but you simmer just the same, get uncomfortable and hot in the collar, and are shortly as badly off as the other fellow. So it is with Jimpsonberry's man. Time and time again he has spoiled all my pleasure by making me realize by a glance at his red face and sweating arms how beastly hot it is, when before I had seen him I felt tolerably comfortable. Mike, on the other hand, is not so inconsiderate, and I am confident would let the grass grow a mile high before he would consent to interfere with my temperature by pushing the mower up and down the lawn on a humid day." "Do you keep this interesting specimen of still life all through the year?" asked Mr. Brief, "or do you give him a much-needed vacation in winter? I should think he would be worn out with all this standing around, for nothing that I know of is more tiresome than doing nothing." "No," said the Idiot. "Mike never seems to need a vacation. Sitting down and leaning against things and standing around don't seem to tire him in the least. It might tire you or me, but you see he's used to it. The only effect it has on him, as I view the matter, is that it wears out his clothes. It doesn't impair his lack of vigor at all. So by the simple act of occasionally renewing his wardrobe, which I do every time I discard a suit of my own, I revive his wasted vitality, and he does not require to be sent to Europe, or to take an extended tour in the White Mountains to recuperate. I keep him all through the winter, and his system is quite the same then as in summer, except that he does his sitting around and leaning indoors instead of in the open."