"Well, if he cleans your windows, that is something," observed Mrs. Pedagog, whose experience in keeping a boarding-house years before entitled her to speak as one having authority. "Unless his system is the same in that work as in the other branches committed to his care," said Mr. Brief. [Illustration: "'SPEND A WHOLE DAY ON ONE WINDOW'"] "It isn't quite," said the Idiot. "He really does exert himself in window-cleaning. I have frequently seen him spend a whole day on one window. His window-washing system is a very ingenious one, nevertheless." "It is, indeed," said Mrs. Idiot, with a show of feeling. "A new window-washing system?" grinned Mr. Pedagog. "Yes," said the Idiot. "It is his own invention. He washes them on the outside in summer and on the inside in winter. The result is this opalescent glass which you see. You would hardly guess that these windows are of French plate. Still, we don't mind so much. I couldn't ask him to wash them on the outside in winter, it is so dreadfully cold, and in the summer, of course, they are always open, and no one, unless he were disagreeable enough to go snooping about after unpleasant details, would notice that they are not immaculate." "And you pay this man forty dollars for this?" demanded Mr. Brief. "Oh, for this and other things. I pay him two dollars a month for the work he does. I pay him ten dollars a month because he's good to the children. I pay him ten dollars more for his civility, which is unvarying--he always puts his hat on when he comes into the house, having noticed, perhaps, that only those who are my social equals are entitled to appear bareheaded in my presence." "And the other eighteen?" persisted the lawyer, by nature a cross-examiner. "Well, I don't grudge him that because--" a sort of a fond light lit up the Idiot's eyes as he gazed down upon Mike, still sitting on the tennis-court--"I don't grudge him that other eighteen dollars because it costs Mike twenty dollars a month to live; and he uses the rest of it to put his boy through college, so that when he grows up to be a man he will be something more than a hired man." "Ah!" said Mr. Brief. "Yes," said the Idiot; "I found that out from a third party some time ago, and I thought after all I'd keep him, for I know nobody else would have him, and then what would become of the boy in college?" IX ON SOCIAL ACCOUNTS "It's rather strange, I think," observed Mrs. Idiot one evening, as she and the Idiot sat down to dine, "that the Dawkinses haven't been here for three or four months." "I've noticed it myself," said the Idiot. "We used to see 'em every day about. What's up? You and Polly Dawkins had a fight?" "Not that I know of," said Mrs. Idiot. "The last time we met she was very cordial, and asked most affectionately after you and the children. I presumed that possibly you and Dick had had some kind of a falling out."