Well, Field-Marshal Whacker began operations by throwing out the suggestion, every now and then, that the Library would be more comfortable to the young men who were sometimes crowded into it, on gala occasions (what a time they used to have!), if the bookcases and the great table were removed. But where to put them? He had often been puzzling his head of late, he would say, trying to contrive some addition to the house, but it was so built that he did not very well see how it could be added to. After much beating about the bush, from time to time, at last the proposition for a separate building came. Charley, very naturally, could not see the necessity for this, considering we were but three; but, finding the old gentleman’s heart set on the project, he ceased to raise objections. “It would be such a comfortable little nook to retire to.” “Retire from whom, Uncle Tom?” “Often, you know, our friends bring their children.” “Very true.” “It would be a good place to read or write in, when the house was full.” “Exactly.” “Certainly. And then, sometimes, when a lot of you young fellows got together, and wanted to have a ‘high old time,’ you could go out there, and I could go to bed and let you have it out. Don’t you see?” “Capital.” So it was settled. “But, Charley, would not a single room, stuck out all alone in the yard, have rather a queer look?” “Rather queer, I should say.” “While we are about it, why not put two rooms under one roof?” “Of course.” “Don’t you think so? Then we’ll do it. Two rooms,—let me see.” And the wily old captain seemed to reflect. “As the rooms would be of only one story, the pitch should be high,—better artistic effect, you know.” “Undoubtedly,” acquiesced Charley. And the crafty engineer meditated as to how to run his next and last parallel. “But what kind of a room shall the second be? The first will be our Library, and, in case of a pinch, an extra guest-chamber, of course. But what are we to do with the second room? There’s the rub.” “That’s a fact,” granted Charley between puffs; and the twain were silent for a little while. “By Jove, I have it!” exclaimed my grandfather, slapping his thigh. Charley looked up. “We’ll make a ball-room of it.” “A ball-room! Good Lord, Uncle Tom!” cried Charley, surprised, for a moment, out of his habitual calm. “Why not?” asked Mr. Whacker, appealing with his eyes from Charley to me, and from me to Charley. “Why not a ball-room? Remember how many young people we frequently have here, especially Christmas time,—and you know they always dance.” “I had forgotten that.” “As it is, they must dance on a carpet, or else it must be taken up, and that is a great bother; whereas, with a nicely waxed floor! And then,” added my grandfather, casually,—running over the words as if of minor importance (’twas a regular masked battery),—“and then the fiddles would sound so much better in such a room.” “Oho!” cried Charley.