assented the Idiot. "And I'll tell you one thing, Pollie, dear," he added, "if they had had that fun just once, instead of squandering their savings on clothes and the theatre, and on horses, you'd find every blessed one of those chaps thronging the hardware shops all day and spending their money there. Why, do you know I even enjoyed getting the clothes-pins, and what is more, it was instructive. I never knew before what countless varieties of clothes-pins there were. There's the plain kind of commerce that look like a pair of legs with a polo-cap on. I was brought up on those, and I used to steal them when I was a small boy, to act as understudies for Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth in my Noah's ark. Then there's the patent kind with a spring to it that is guaranteed to hang onto a garment in a gale if it has to let go of the rope. Very few people realize the infinite variety of the clothes-pin, and when I try to tell these chaps at the club about it they yawn and try to change the subject to things like German opera and impressionism and international complications."
"How foolish of them!" laughed Mrs. Idiot. "The idea of preferring to talk of Wagner when one can discourse upon clothes-pins!"
"I am afraid you are sarcastic," rejoined the Idiot. "But you needn't be; if you'd only reason it out you'd see at once that my view is correct. Anybody can talk about Wagner. Any person who knows a picture from a cable-car can talk with seeming intelligence on art, and even a member of Congress can talk about international complications off-hand for hours; but how many of these people know about clothes-pins?"
"Very few," said Mrs. Idiot, meekly.
"Very few, indeed," observed the Idiot. "And the same way with egg-beaters. I'll bet you a laundry-stove that if I should write to the Recorder to-morrow morning, and ask a question about Wagner, the musical editor would give me an answer within twenty-four hours; but with reference to egg-beaters it would take 'em a week to find out. And that's just the trouble. The newspapers are filled up with stuff that everybody knows about, but they don't know a thing about other things on the subject of which the public is ignorant."
"I think," said Mrs. Idiot, reflectively, "that that is probably due to the fact that they consider Wagner more important than an egg-beater."
"Well, then, they don't know, that's all," rejoined the Idiot, rising and walking out into the kitchen and taking the fascinating object over which he was waxing so enthusiastic from the dresser drawer. "Just look at that!" he cried, turning the cog-wheel which set the three intersecting metal loops whizzing like a squirrel in its wheel-cage. "Just look at that! It's beautiful, and some people say Wagner is more important than that."
"Well, I must say, my dear," said Mrs. Idiot, "that I have a leaning that way myself. Of course, I admit the charm of the egg-beater, but – "
"Tell me one thing," demanded the Idiot. "Can you get along without Wagner?"
"Why, yes," Mrs. Idiot replied, "if I have to."
"And can you get along without an egg-beater?" he cried, triumphantly.
The evidence was overwhelming, and Mrs. Idiot, with an appreciative ebullition of mirth, acknowledged herself defeated, and so charmingly withal, that the next day when her husband returned home he brought her two tickets for the opera of Siegfried as a reward for her graceful submission.
"I could have bought ten dozen muffin-rings for the same money," said he, as he gave them to her, "but people who know when to give in, and do give in as amiably as you do, my dear, deserve to be rewarded; and, on the whole, when you use these tickets, if you'll ask me, I think I'll escort you to Siegfried myself."
II
A LITTLE DINNER TO SOME OLD FRIENDS
Ten days later all was excitement at the Idiot's new home. Tommy and Mollie were in a state bordering upon frenzy, and gave the cook a great deal of trouble, requesting a taste of this, that, and the other thing, which she was preparing for the dinner to Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog, the Bibliomaniac, and the others. Inwardly, too, they were somewhat wrathful, for they could not understand why they were not permitted to dine with their parents as usual.
"I guess maybe it's your manners that keeps you away, Tommy," said Mollie.
"Hoh!" said Tommy. "It can't be that, because pa says I ain't got any. It's because you're too young to be introdoosed into society, and I've got to stay up-stairs and look after you. If you weren't a girl!"
Here Tommy clenched his fists and looked unutterable things. Mollie shuddered and was glad she was a girl as she imagined the awful things Tommy would do to her had she been a boy.
"Neither of 'em's it, Tommy," she said, in a conciliatory manner. "It's because they ain't got enough dining-room chairs, that's why. I know, because I counted 'em, and there's only eight, and there's nine people comin'."
"I guess maybe that's it," said Tommy, pacified somewhat. "And anyhow, I don't care. I saw that piece of paper ma gave Jennie, and she wrote down all the things they're goin' to have, and it's goin' to be two hours between the soup and the ice-cream. I couldn't ever wait that long for the ice-cream. I don't see why they don't begin with ice-cream."
"I guess maybe we're better off as it is," said Mollie. "Popper and mommer ain't likely to forget us, and, besides, we can talk."
And with this comforting reflection the little ones retired to their nursery contented in mind and spirit – and they didn't suffer a bit. Their "popper and mommer" didn't forget them. The ice-cream was excellent, and they had their share of it almost before the guests began with their oysters.
At seven o'clock Mr. and Mrs. Pedagog had arrived, and at seven-ten all the invited guests were present.
"If it hadn't been for my wife," Mr. Pedagog whispered in his host's ear, "I should have been late, too."
"Don't apologize, old man," replied the Idiot, gripping the Schoolmaster's hand warmly. "I sometimes go to dinners on time myself."
In a few moments dinner was announced, and shortly after all were seated, and in memory of old times the guests naturally waited for the Idiot to begin.
"Do you know," he said, as he squeezed the juice from a luscious lemon over an unprotesting oyster, at the same time glancing affectionately over the company, "I haven't felt so much at home for years as I do now."
"Not very complimentary to your wife," said Mr. Brief.
"Oh, I know what he means," observed Mrs. Idiot.
"And I have so many other opportunities to compliment her," said the Idiot.
"But really, Mrs. Pedagog," he added, addressing the good lady who sat at his right, "I feel absolutely contented to-night. All the good things of the past and of the present seem to be concentrated about this board – except the three up-stairs, who can't very well be here."
"Three?" asked Mr. Pedagog. "I thought there were only two – "
"Certainly," said the Idiot. "Tommy and Mollie, but there is Mary, your old housemaid. We can't very well ask them to dine with us, you know."
"I don't see why Tommy and Mollie can't be invited," said Mr. Pedagog, much to the Idiot's surprise, it seemed so like a violation of his system, as it might be presumed to be.
"You believe in having children at table, then, Mr. Pedagog?" asked Mrs. Idiot.
"Most certainly," said the Schoolmaster. Mrs. Pedagog glanced smilingly at Mrs. Idiot, as much as to say, "Oh, these men!"
"I certainly do approve of having children at table on all occasions," he continued. "How else are they to learn how to conduct themselves? The discipline of the nursery is apt to be lax, and it is my belief that many of the bad table manners of the present-day child are due to the sense of freedom which eating dinner in the nursery naturally inculcates."
"There is something in what you say," said the Idiot. "Tommy, for instance, never learned to throw a French pancake across the table at his sister by watching his mother and myself here in the dining-room, yet in the freedom of the nursery I have known it done."
"Precisely," said Mr. Pedagog. "That very little incident illustrates my point exactly. And I have no doubt that in the nursery the offence seemed less heinous than it would had it occurred in the dining-room,