On the day that I made my choice I saw a child of three playing in the grass plot before the brown bungalow. It was Saturday afternoon, and the typical young freeholder was doing something with an axe near the woodshed, and even as I surveyed the scene the domestic picture was completed by the appearance of the inevitable young woman, who came from the direction of the trolley-terminus, carrying the usual neat card-case in her hand. Here was exactly what I wanted--a chance to study at close hand the bungalow type, and yet, Landor Lane was so quiet, its trio of houses so distributed, that I might enjoy that coveted detachment so essential to contemplative observation and wise judgments. “I’ve forgotten,” mused the architect, as we viewed the scene together, “whether the chap in that brown bungalow is Redmond, the patent lawyer, or Manderson, the tile-grate man. There’s a baby of about the same vintage at both houses. If that isn’t Redmond over there showing Gladstonian prowess with the axe, it’s Manderson. Woman with child and cart; number 58; West Gallery; artist unknown.” It pleased my friend’s humor to quote thus from imaginary catalogues. “Well, I don’t know whether those are the Redmonds or the Mandersons; but come to think of it, Redmond isn’t a lawyer, but the inventor of a new office system by which profit and loss are computed hourly by a device so simple that any child may operate it. A man of your cloistral habits won’t care about the neighbors, but I hope that chap isn’t Redmond. A man who will think up a machine like that isn’t one you’d expose perfectly good garden hose to, on dark summer nights.” II A Japanese boy who was working his way through college offered to assume the responsibilities of my housekeeping for his board. Banzai brought to the task of cooking the deft hand of his race. He undertook the purchase of furniture to set me up in the bungalow, without asking questions--in itself a great relief. In a week’s time he announced that all was in readiness for my transfer, so that I made the change quite casually, without other impedimenta than a portfolio and a suitcase. On that first evening, as Banzai served my supper--he was a past master of the omelet--I enjoyed a peace my life had not known before. In collecting material for my earlier sketches I had undeniably experienced many discomforts and annoyances; but here was an adventure which could hardly fail to prove pleasant and profitable.