It was a pleasant night in the spring of 189-.

The residents of Dumfries Corners were enjoying an early spring, and suffering from the demoralizing influences of a municipal election. Incidentally Mr. Thaddeus Perkins, candidate, was beginning to feel very much like Moses when he saw the promised land afar. The promised land was now in plain sight; but whether or not the name of Perkins should be inscribed in one of its high places depended upon the voters who on the morrow were to let their ballots express their choice as to who should preside over the interests of the city and hold in check the fiery, untamed aldermen of Dumfries Corners.

The candidate was tired, very tired, and was trying to gain a few hours' rest before plunging again and for the last time into the whirlpool of vote-getting; and as he sat enjoying a few moments of blissful ease behind the close-drawn portieres of his library there came the much-dreaded sound of heavy feet upon the porch without, and the door-bell rang.

"Norah!" cried the candidate, in an agonized stage-whisper, as the maid approached in answer to the summons, "tell them I'm out, unless it's some one of my personal friends."

"Yis, sorr," was the answer. "Oi will."

And the door was opened.

"Is Misther Perkins in?" came a deep, unmistakably "voting" voice from without.

"Oi dun'no'. Are yees a personal friend of Misther Perkins?" was the response, and the heart of the listening Perkins sought his boots.

"Oi am not, but—" said the deep voice.

"Thin he isn't in," said Norah, positively.

"When 'll he be back?" asked the visitor, huskily.

"Ye say ye niver met him?" demanded Norah.

"Oi told ye oi hadn't," said the visitor, a trifle irritably. "But—"

"Thin he'll niver be back," put in the glorious Norah, and she shut the door with considerable force and retired.

For a moment the candidate was overcome; first he paled, but then catching Mrs. Perkins's eye and noting a twinkle of amusement therein, he yielded to his emotions and roared with laughter. What if Norah's manner was unconventional? Had she not carried out instructions?

"My dear," said the candidate to Mrs. Perkins, as the shuffling feet on the porch shuffled off into the night, "what wages do you pay Norah?"

"Sixteen dollars, Thaddeus," was the answer. "Why?"

"Make it twenty hereafter," replied the candidate. "She is an emerald beyond price. If I had only let her meet the nominating committee when they entered our little Eden three weeks ago, I should not now be involved in this wretched game of politics."

"Well, I sincerely wish you had," Mrs. Perkins observed, heartily. "This affair has made a very different man of you, and as for your family, they hardly see you any more. You are neglecting every single household duty for your horrid old politics."

"Well, now, my dear—" began the candidate.

"The pipes in the laundry have been leaking for four days now, and yet you won't send for a plumber, or even let me send for one," continued Mrs. Perkins.

"Well, Bessie dear, how can I? The race is awfully close. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority either way was less than a hundred."

"There you go again, Thaddeus. What on earth has the leak in the laundry pipes to do with the political situation?" asked the puzzled woman.

The candidate showed that in spite of his recent affiliations he still retained some remnant of his former self-respect, for he blushed as he thought of the explanation; but he tried nevertheless to shuffle out of it.

"Of course you can't understand," he said, with a cowardly resolve to shirk the issue. "That's because you are a woman, Bess. Women don't understand great political questions. And what I have particularly liked about you is that you never pretended that you did."

"Well, I'd like to know," persisted Mrs. Perkins. "I want to be of as much assistance to my husband in his work as I can, and if public questions are hereafter to be the problems of your life, they must become my problems too. Besides, my curiosity is really aroused in this especial case, and I'd love to know what bearing our calling a plumber has upon the tariff, or the money question, or any other thing in politics."

The candidate hesitated. He was cornered, and he did not exactly like the prospect.

"Well—" he began. "You see, I'm standing as the representative of a great party, and we—we naturally wish to win. If I am defeated, every one will say that it is a rebuke to the administration at Washington; and so, you see, we'd better let those leaks leak until day after to-morrow, when the voting will all be over."

Mrs. Perkins looked at her husband narrowly.

"I think I'll have to call the doctor," was her comment. "Either for you or for myself, Teddy. One of us is gone—wholly gone, mentally. There's no question about it, either you are rambling in your speech, or I have entirely lost all comprehension of the English language."

"I don't see—" began Perkins.

"Neither do I," interrupted Mrs. Perkins; "and I hardly hope to. You've explained and explained, but how a plumber's calling here to fix a laundry leak is to rebuke the administration at Washington is still far beyond me."

"But the plumbers are said to hold the balance of power!" cried the candidate. "There are a hundred of them here in Dumfries Corners, and each one controls at least five assistants, which makes six hundred voters in all. If I call in one, he and his five workers will vote for me, but the other five hundred and ninety-four will vote for Haskins; and if they do, the administration might as well go out of business. Can't you see? It's the same with the dandelions. These spring elections are perfect—ah—Gehenna for a candidate if it happens to be an early spring like this."

Perkins's voice had the suggestion of a wail in it as he spoke of the dandelions, and his wife's alarm grew upon her. She understood now about the plumber, but his interjection of the dandelions had brought a fearful doubt into her heart. Surely he was losing his mind.

"Dandelions, Thaddeus?" she echoed, aghast.

"Yes, dandelions," retorted the candidate, forcibly. "They've queered me as much as anything. The neighbors say I'm not a good neighbor because I don't have them pulled. Mike's been so thoroughly alcoholic all through the fight, looking after my interests, that he can't pull them; and if I hire two men to come and do the work, seven hundred other men will want to know why they didn't get a chance."

"But why not employ boys?" demanded Mrs. Perkins.

"And be set down as an advocate of cheap child labor? Not I!" cried Perkins.

"Then the dandelion-pullers are another balance of power, are they?" asked Mrs. Perkins, beginning to grow somewhat easier in her mind as to her husband's sanity.

"Precisely; you have a very remarkable gift of insight, Bess," answered the candidate.

"And how many balances of power are there?" demanded the lady.

"The Lord only knows," sighed Perkins. "I've made about eighty of 'em solid already, but as soon as one balance is fixed a thousand others rise up like Banquo's ghost, and will not down. I haven't a doubt that it was a balance of power that Norah just turned away from the front door. They strike you everywhere. Why, even Bobbie ruined me with one of them in the Eighth Ward the other day—one solidified balance wiped out in a moment by my interesting son."

"Bobbie?" cried Mrs. Perkins. "A six-year-old boy?"

"Exactly—Bobbie, the six-year-old boy. I wish you'd keep the children in the house until this infernal business is over. The Eighth Ward would have elected me; but Bobbie ruined that," said Perkins, ruefully.

"But how?" cried Mrs. Perkins. "Have our children been out making campaign speeches for the other side?"

"They have," assented Perkins. "They have indeed. You remember that man Jorrigan?"

"The striker?" queried Mrs. Perkins, calling to mind a burly combination of red hair and bad manners who had made himself very conspicuous of late.

"Precisely. That's just the point," retorted Perkins. "The striker. That's what he is, and it's what you call him."

"But you said he was a striker at breakfast last Wednesday," said Mrs. Perkins. "We simply take your word for it."

"I know I did. He's also a balance of power, my dear. Jorrigan controls the Eighth Ward. That's the only reason I've let him in the house," said Thaddeus.

"You've been very chummy with him, I must say," sniffed Mrs. Perkins.

"Well, I've had to be," said the candidate. "That man is a power, and he knows it."

"What's his business?" asked Mrs. Perkins.

"Interference between capital and labor," replied Perkins. "So I've cultivated him."

"He never struck me as being a very cultivated person," smiled Mrs. Perkins. "He has a suggestion of alcohol about him that is very oppressive."

"I know—he has a very intoxicating presence," said the candidate, joining in the smile. "But we are rid of his presence now and forever, thanks to Bobbie. I got the news last night. He and his followers have declared for Haskins, in spite of all his promises to me, and we can attribute our personal good fortune and our political loss to Bobbie. Bobbie met him on the street the other day."

"I know he did," said Mrs. Perkins. "He told me so, and he said that the horrid man wanted to kiss him."

"It's true," said Perkins. "He did, and Bobbie wouldn't let him."

"Well, a man isn't going back on you because he can't kiss your whole family, is he?" asked Mrs. Perkins, apprehensively. "If that's the situation, I shall go to New York to-morrow."

Perkins laughed heartily. "No, my dear," he said. "You are safe enough from that. But Jorrigan, when Bobbie refused, said, 'Well, young feller, I guess you don't know who I am?' 'Yes, I do,' said Bobbie. 'You are Mr. Jorrigan,' and Jorrigan was overjoyed; but Bobbie destroyed his good work by adding, 'Jorrigan the striker,' and the striker's joy vanished. 'Who told you that?' said he. 'Pop—and he knows,' said Bobbie. That night," continued Perkins, with a droll expression of mingled mirth and annoyance, "the amalgamated mortar-mixers of the Eighth Ward decided that consideration for the country's welfare should rise above partisan politics, and that when it came to real statesmanship Haskins could give me points. A ward wiped out in a night, and another highly interesting, very thirsty balance of power gone over to the other side."

"I should think you'd give up, then," said Mrs. Perkins, despairfully. She wanted her husband to win—not because she had any ambition to shine as "Lady-Mayor," but because she did not wish Thaddeus to incur disappointment or undergo the chagrin of a public rebuke. "You seem to be losing balances of power right and left."

"Why should I give it up?" queried Perkins. "You don't suppose I am having any better luck than Mr. Haskins, do you?"

"Is he losing them too?" asked Mrs. Perkins, hopefully.

"I judge so from what he tells me," said Perkins. "We took dinner together at the Centurion in New York the other night, and he's a prince of good fellows, Bess. He has just as much trouble as I have, and when I met him on the train the other day he was as blue as I about the future."

"You and the captain dining together?" ejaculated Mrs. Perkins.

"Certainly," said Perkins. "Why not? Our hatred is merely political, and we can meet on a level of good-fellowship anywhere outside of Dumfries Corners."

Mrs. Perkins laughed outright. "Isn't it funny!" she said.

"Why, Haskins is one of my best friends, generally," continued Perkins. "I don't see anything funny about it. Just because we both happen to be dragged into politics on opposite sides at the same moment is no reason why we should begin cutting each other's throats, my dear. In fact, with balances of power springing up all over town like mushrooms, we have become companions in misery."

"Well, I don't see why you can't get together, then, and tell these balances to go to—to grass," suggested Mrs. Perkins.

"Grass is too mild, my love," remarked the candidate, smiling quietly. "They wouldn't go there, even if we told them to, so it would be simply a waste of breath. We've got to grin and bear them until the polls close, and then we can pitch in and tell 'em what we think of them."

"Just the same," continued Mrs. Perkins, "an agreement between Mr. Haskins and you to ignore these people utterly, instead of taking them into your family, would stop the whole abuse."

"That's a woman's idea," said Perkins, bravely, though in the innermost recesses of his heart he wished he had thought of it before. "It isn't practical politics, my love. You might as well say that two opposing generals in a war could save thousands of lives by avoiding each other's armies and keeping out of a fight."

"Well, I do say that," replied Mrs.

Perkins, positively. "That's exactly my view of what generals ought to do."

"And what would become of the war?" queried the candidate.

"There wouldn't be any," said the good little woman.

"Precisely," retorted Perkins. "Precisely. And if Haskins and I did what you want us to do, there would be no more politics."

"Well, what of it?" demanded Mrs. Perkins. "Are politics the salvation of the country? It's as bad as war."

"Humph!" grunted Perkins. "It is difficult to please women. You hate war because, to settle a question of right, people go out into the field of battle and mow each other down with guns; you cry for arbitration. Let all questions, all differences of opinion, be settled by a resort to reason, say you—which is beautiful, and undoubtedly proper. But when we try to settle our differences by a bloodless warfare, in which the ballot is one's ammunition, you cry down with politics. A political contest is nothing but a bit of supreme arbitration, for which you peace people are always clamoring, by the court of last resort, the people."

Mrs. Perkins smiled sweetly, and taking her husband's hand in hers, stroked it softly.

"Teddy dear, you mustn't be so politic with me," she said; "I'm not a campaign club. I know that sentiment you have just expressed is lofty and noble, and ought to be true, and I know we used to think it was true—three weeks ago I believed it when you said it; but this is now, dear. This is to-night, not three weeks ago, and I have changed my mind."

"Well," began the candidate, hesitatingly, "I don't know but that I am weakening a trifle myself."

"I know," interposed Mrs. Perkins, "you are weakening. You know as well as I do that the hard work you are doing is not in appealing to the reason of the supreme court of arbitration, the people. You are appealing, as you have said, yourself, to a large and interesting variety of balances of power, that do not want your views or your opinions or your arguments, but they do want your money to buy cigars and beer with. They want you to buy their good-will; and even if you bought it, I doubt if they would concede to you a controlling interest in it if Mr. Haskins should happen to want some of it, and I don't doubt he does."

"You don't know anything—" the candidate ventured.

"Yes I do, too," returned Mrs. Perkins, with the self-satisfied nod which the average new woman gives when she thinks she is right, though Mrs. Perkins had no pretensions in that direction, happily for her family. "I know all that you have told me. I know that when you were to dine at Colonel Buckley's on Wednesday night you wore your evening dress, and that when leaving there early to go to the city and address the Mohawk Independent Club you asked your manager if you could go dressed as you were, and his answer was, 'Not on your life,' and you went home and put on your business suit. You told me that yourself, and yet you talk about the supreme court of arbitration, the people!"

"But, Bess, the Mohawks are a powerful organization," pleaded Perkins. "I couldn't afford to offend them."

"No. It was the first balance of power that turned up. I remember it well. It was to be convinced by arguments. You were going down there to discuss principles, but you couldn't appeal to their judicial minds or reach their reason unless you changed your clothes; and when you got there as their guest, and ventured to ask for a glass of Vichy before you spoke, do you remember what they brought you?" demanded Mrs. Perkins, warming up to her subject.

The candidate smiled faintly. "Yes," he answered. "Beer."

"Exactly; and when he gave you the beer, that MacHenty man whispered in your ear, 'Drink that; it'll go better wid the byes.'"

"He did," said Thaddeus, meekly.

"And yet you talk about this appeal to a reasonable balance of power! Really, Teddy, you are becoming demoralized. Politics, as I see it, is an appeal to thirst, and nothing else."

"'You never miss the voter till the keg runs dry,'" sang the candidate, with a more or less successful attempt at gayety. "But never mind, Bess. I've had enough, and if I'm beaten this time I'll never do it again. So don't worry; and, after all, this is only a municipal election.

The difference between a grand inspiring massive war for principle and a street riot. The supreme court of arbitration, the people, can be relied on to do the right thing in the end. They are sane. They are honest. They are not all thirsty, and in this as in all contests the blatant attract the most attention. The barker at the door of the side show to the circus makes more noise than the eight-headed boy that makes the mare go."

"You're a trifle mixed in your metaphors, Teddy," said Mrs. Perkins.

"Well who wouldn't be, after a three weeks' appeal to an arid waste of voters?"

"A waste of arid voters," amended Mrs. Perkins.

"The amendment is accepted," laughed Thaddeus. And at that moment a telephone call from headquarters summoned him abroad.

"Good-night, Bess," he said, kissing his wife affectionately. "This is the last night."

"Good-night, Teddy; I hope it is. And next time when they ask you to run—"

"You shall be the balance of power, and decide the question for me," said the candidate, as, with sorrow in his heart, he left his home to seek out what he called "the branch office of Hades," political headquarters, where were gathered some fifty persons, most of whom began life in other countries, under different skies, and to whom the national anthem "America" meant less and aroused fewer sentiments worth having than that attractive two-step "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning," and who were yet sufficiently powerful with the various "balances" of the town to hold its political destinies in their itching palms.

Two months after this discussion the late Honorable Thaddeus Perkins, ex-candidate, and Mayor of Dumfries Corners only by courtesy of those who honor defeated candidates with titles for which they have striven unsuccessfully, was strolling through the country along the line of the Croton Aqueduct, trying to disentangle, with the aid of the fresh sweet air of an early summer afternoon, an idea for a sonnet from the mazes of his brain. Stopping for a moment to look down upon the glorious Hudson stretching its shimmering length like a bimetallic serpent to the north and south, he suddenly became conscious of a pair of very sharp eyes resting upon him, which a closer inspection showed belonged to a laborer of seemingly diminutive stature, who was engaged in carrying earth in a wheelbarrow from one dirt-pile to another. As Thaddeus caught his eye the laborer assumed towering proportions. He rose up quite two feet higher in the air and bowed.

"How do you do?" said Perkins, returning the salutation courteously, wondering the while as to what might be the cause of this sudden change of height.

"Oi'm well—which is nothin' new to me," replied the other. "Ut sheems to me," he continued, "thot youse resimbles thot smart young felly Perkins, the Mayor of Dumfries Corners—not!"

Perkins laughed. The sting of defeat had lost its power to annoy, and his experience had become merely one of a thousand other nightmares of the past.

"Do I?" he replied, resolving not to confess his identity, for the moment at least.

"Only thinner," chuckled the laborer, shrinking up again; and Perkins now saw that the legs of his new acquaintance were of an abnormally unequal length, which forced him every time he shifted his weight from one foot to the other to change his apparent height to a startling degree. "An' a gude dale thinner," he repeated. "There's nothin' loike polithical exersoize to take off th' flesh, parthicularly when ye miss ut."

"I fancy you are right," said Perkins. "I never met Mr. Perkins—that is, face to face—myself. Do you know him?"

The Irishman threw his head back and laughed.

"Well," he said, "oi'm not wan uv his pershonal fri'nds. But oi know um when oi see um," and he looked Thaddeus straight in the eye as he grew tall again.

"I'm sure it is Perkins's loss," returned Thaddeus, "that you are not a personal friend of his."

"It was," said the Irishman. "My name is Finn," he added, with an air which seemed to assume that Perkins would begin to tremble at the dreaded word; but Perkins did not tremble. He merely replied,

"A very good name, Mr. Finn."

"Oi t'ink so," assented Mr. Finn. "Ut's better nor Dinnis, me young fri'nd."

Perkins assented to this proposition as though it was merely general, and had no particular application to the affairs of the moment. "I suppose, Mr. Finn," he observed, shortly, "that you were one of the earnest workers in the late campaign for Mr. Perkins?"

"Was he elicted?" asked Finn, scornfully.

"I believe not," began Thaddeus. "But—"

"Thot's me answer to your quistion, sorr," said Finn, with dignity. "He'd 'a' had lamps befoor his house now, sorr, if he hadn't been gay wid his front dure."

"Oh—he was gay with his front door, was he?" asked Perkins.

"He was thot, an' not ony too careful uv his windy-shades," replied Finn.

Perkins looked at him inquiringly.

"Givin' me, Mike Finn, song an' dance about not bein' home, wid me fri'nds outside on the lawn watchin' him troo de windy, laffin' loike a hayeny."

"Excuse me—like a what?" said Thaddeus.

"A hayeny," repeated Mr. Finn. "Wan o' thim woild bastes as laffs at nothin' much. 'Is he home?' sez oi. 'Are yees a pershonal fri'nd?' says the gurl. 'Oi'm not,' sez oi. 'He ain't home,' says the gurl. 'Whin'll he be back?' says oi. 'Niver,' says she, shlammin' the dure in me face; and Mike Finn wid a certifikut uv election for um in his pocket!"

"A certificate of election?" cried Perkins. "And he wouldn't see you?"

"He would not."

"You were to an extent the balance of power, then?"

"That's what oi was," said Finn, enjoying what he thought was Perkins's dismay; for he knew well enough to whom he was talking. "Oi was the rale bonyfiday balance uv power. Oi've got foive sons, sorr, and ivery wan o' thim byes is conthracthors, or, what's as good, bosses uv gangs on public an' proivate works. There ain't wan uv thim foive byes as don't conthrol twinty-foive votes, an' there ain't wan uv 'em as don't moind what the ould mon says to um. Not wan, sorr. An' they resints the turnin' down uv their father."

"That's as it should be," said Perkins.

"An' ut's as ut was, me young fri'nd. Whin oi wint home to me pershonal fri'nds at th' Finn Club, Misther Perkins had losht me. Wan gone. Whin oi tould the Finn Club, wan hundred sthrong, he losht thim. Wan hundred and wan gone. Whin oi tould th' byes, he losht thim. Wan hundred an' six gone. An' whin they tould their twinty-foive apiece, ivery twinty-foive o' thim wint. Wan hundred an' six plus wan hundred an' twinty-foive makes two hundred an' thirty-wan votes losht at the shlammin' uv the front dure. An' whin two hundred an' thirty-wan votes laves wan soide minus an' the other soide plus, th' gineral result is a difference uv twoice two hundred an' thirty-wan, or foor hundred an' sixty-two. D'ye mind thot, sorr?"

"I see," said Perkins. "And as this—ah—this particular candidate was beaten by a bare majority of two or three hundred votes—"

"It was me as done it!" put in the balance of power, shaking his finger at Perkins impressively. "Me—Mike Finn!"

"Well, I hope Mr. Perkins hears of it, Mr. Finn," put in Thaddeus. "I am told that he is wondering yet what hit him, and having put the affront upon you, and through that inexcusable act lost the election, he ought to know that you were his Nemesis."

"His what?" queried the real balance.

"His Nemesis. Nemesis is the name of a Greek goddess," exclaimed Perkins.

"Oi'm no Greek, nor no goddess," retorted Finn, "but I give him the throw-down."

"That's what I meant," explained Thaddeus. "The word has become part of the English language. Nemesis was the Goddess of the Throw-down, and the word is used to signify that."

"Oh, oi see," said Finn, scratching his head reflectively. Perkins took his revelation a trifle too calmly. "You say you don't know this Perkins," he asked.

"Well, I never met him," said the ex-candidate, smiling. "But I know him."

Finn laughed again. "Oi'll bet ye do; an' oi guiss ye've seen his fa-ace long about shavin'-toime in the mornin' in the lukin'-glash—eh?"

"Well, yes," smiled Perkins. "I confess I'm the man, Mr. Finn; but now we are—personal friends—eh? I was fagged out that night, and—you didn't send in your card, you know—and I didn't know it was you." The balance of power cast down his eyes, and rubbing his hand on his overalls as if to clean it, stretched it out. Perkins grasped it, and Finn gave a slight gulp. He wasn't quite happy. The proffered friendship of the man he had helped to defeat rather upset him; but he was equal to the occasion.

"Niver moind, sorr," he said, when he had quite recovered. "You're young yit. They've shoved yees out this toime, but wait awhoile. Yees'll be back."

"No, Mr. Finn," replied Perkins, handing Finn a cigar. "Thanks to you, I got out of a tight hole, and as our maid said to you that night, I'll 'niver be back.' But if you happen down my way again, I'll be glad to see you—at any time. Good-bye."

The two parted, and Thaddeus walked home, thinking deeply of the far-reaching effect in this life of little things; and as for Finn, he bit off half the cigar Perkins had given him, and as he chewed upon it, sitting on the edge of his barrow, he remarked forcibly to himself, "Well, oi'll be daamned!"

Jarley was an inventive genius. He invented things for the pleasure of it rather than with any idea of ultimately profiting from the results of his ingenuity, which may explain why it was that his friends deemed many of his contrivances a sheer waste of time. Among other things that Jarley invented was a tennis-racket which could be folded up and packed away in a trunk. The fact that any ordinary tennis-racket could be packed away in any ordinary trunk without being folded up was to Jarley no good reason why he should not devote his energies to the production of the compact weapon of sport which he called the Jarley Racket. He was after novelty, and utility was always a secondary consideration with him. Others of his inventions were somewhat more startling. "The Jarley Ready Writing-Desk for Night Use," for instance, was a really remarkable conception. Its chief value lay in the saving of gas and midnight oil to impecunious writers which its use was said to bring about, and when fully equipped consisted simply of a writing-table with all the appliances and conveniences thereof treated with phosphorus in such a manner that in the blackest of darkness they could all be seen readily. The ink even was phosphorescent. The paper was luminous in the dark. The penholders, pens, pen-wipers, mucilage-bottle, everything, in fact, that an author really needs for the production of literature, save ideas, were so prepared that they could not fail to be visible to the weakest eye in the darkest night without the aid of other illumination. The chief trouble with the invention was that in the long-run it was more expensive than gas or oil could possibly be in the most extravagant household; but that bothered Jarley not a jot. Nor was he at all upset when his ingenious Library Folding-Bed, comprising a real bookcase and sofa-couch, failed to suit his practical-minded friends because, when turned down for use as a couch, all the books in the bookcase side of it fell out upon the floor. His arrangement was better than the ordinary folding-bed, he said, because the bookcase side of it was not a sham, but the real thing, while that of the folding-bed of commerce was a delusion and a snare. As a hater of shams he justified his invention, though of course it couldn't be put to much practical use unless the purchaser was willing to take his books out of the shelves when he intended using the piece of furniture for sleeping purposes. If the purchaser was too lazy to do this it was not Jarley's fault, so the inventor reasoned, nor did he intend improving his machine in order to accommodate the lazy man in his pursuit of a life of indolence.

When Jarley married he turned his attention to the devising of apparatus to make domestic life less trying to Mrs. Jarley. As a bachelor he had contrived quite a number of mechanical effects which made his lonely life easier. He had fitted up his rooms with devices by means of which, while lying in bed on cold mornings, he could light his gas-stove without getting up; and his cigars, the ends of which he had dipped in sulphur, so that they could be lit by scratching them on the under side of the mantel-piece, just as matches are ignited, were the delight of his life. Now, however, he turned his mind towards helping little Mrs. Jarley on in the domestic world. He prepared a chart by means of which the monotony of marketing was done away with entirely. He also arranged for her a charming automatic curl-paper box, and drew up a plan for a patent pair of curling-tongs, which could be fastened to the gas-fixture and kept heated to the degree required, so that it might be used at a moment's notice. This was provided with a number of movable ends, all different, in order that Mrs. Jarley could, if she chose, vary the appearance of her curls according to her taste; and although the little lady never approved of it sufficiently to have it made, it was undoubtedly a valuable contrivance.

Then when Jarley junior came along to delight the parent soul, self-rocking cradles and perpetual reservoirs for food were devised, and some of them put into actual use, though, as a rule, Mrs. Jarley preferred the old-fashioned methods to which she was by her home training more accustomed.

The great invention of Jarley, however, was the result of his study of Jarley junior as that very charming and exceedingly agile child developed from infancy into boyhood. The idea came to him one Sunday afternoon while Mrs. Jarley was at church. It was the nursemaid's afternoon out, and Jarley had undertaken to care for Master Jarley in the absence of his true guardians.

"Well, Jack," he said to his son, when they had been left in sole possession of the Jarley mansion, "you and I must entertain each other this afternoon. What shall we do?"

"I'd like to play choo-choo car with you," said Jack. "I'll be the engine and you be the train."

"Very well," said Jarley. "Have you got your steam up?"

"Yeth," lisped Jack. "All aboard!"

Jarley hitched himself on to the engine as best he could by grabbing hold of Jack's little coat tail, and the train started. It was the most tedious journey Jarley ever undertook. The train went up and down stairs, out upon the piazza, and finally landed in the kitchen, where the engine fired up on such fuel as gingerbread and cookies. Incidentally the train, as represented by Jarley, took on a load of freight, consisting of the same fuel, and off they started again. At the end of a half-hour's run Jarley was worn out, but the engine seemed to gather strength and speed the farther it travelled; and as it let out a fearful shriek—possibly a whistle—every time the rear end of the train suggested side-tracking and a cessation of traffic for a month or two, Jarley in his indulgence invariably withdrew the proposition. The consequence was that when Mrs. Jarley returned from church Jarley was a wreck, and as he handed the engine over to the maternal care he observed with some testiness that in a well-kept household it seemed to him matters should be so arranged that a busy man should not be compelled to turn himself into a child's nurse, especially on the one day of the week which he could devote to rest and relaxation. "If I had that boy's energy," he said to himself as he fled to his library, "what wonders I would accomplish! What a shame it is, too, that the wasted energy of youth cannot be stored up in some way, so that when there comes the real need for it, it can be made available!"

This thought was the germ of his invention. As he lay there in the library he thought over the possibilities of life if the nervous force of childhood, the misdirected energy of play-time, could only be put by and drawn upon later just as man puts by the money he does not need in the present for use in case of future rainy days. Then, as the sun sank below the hills and the twilight hours with their inspiring softness came on, Jarley resolved that he was the man to whom had come the mission which should make of this ideal a reality. Probably in the full glare of day he would not have undertaken it; but Jarley, in common with most men of dreamy nature, felt in the quiet dusk the power to do all things. He had the poetic temperament which sometimes leads on to great things, and the man so gifted who does not feel himself capable, at that hour of the day of rest, of battering down Gibraltar or of upbuilding the whole human race, must account himself a failure.

"I'll do it," he murmured, drowsily, to himself, and he did. How he did it was Jarley's own secret, and while he confides many things to me, this secret he kept, and still keeps. All I know is that he fitted up a play-room for Jack on the attic floor, and by means of an apparatus, the peculiarities of whose construction he alone knows, he managed after a while to store up the superfluous energy which Jack expended upon everything that he did. Every time Jack turned a somersault he contributed, unknown to himself, something to the growing bulk of hoarded force in the reservoir provided for its reception. All the strength necessary for the somersault was devoted to that operation. The superfluity went to the reservoir. So, also, when in his play of scaling imaginary rocks after fictitious wild beasts he endeavored futilely to walk up the play-room wall, the unavailing energy went to augment the stores from which Jarley hoped to extract so much that would prove of value to the world.

When the reservoir was full the question that confronted Jarley was as to the value of its contents, and to ascertain this he resolved upon an experiment upon himself. No one else, he believed, would be willing to subject himself to the experiment, nor did he wish at that time to let others into his secret. Even Mrs. Jarley was not aware of his efforts, and so he made the experiment. He liquefied the energy Jack had wasted, and upon retiring one night took what he considered to be the proper dose for the test. The effect was remarkable.

When he rose up the next morning he experienced a consciousness of power that reminded him of sundry tales of Samson. But there was one drawback. He did not seem quite able to control himself. For instance, instead of dressing in the usual dignified and quiet way, he found himself prancing about his room like a young colt, and while he was taking his bath he had a yearning for objects of juvenile virtu which had for many years been strangers to his tub. He was not at all satisfied with his dip plain and unadorned, and he had developed an unconquerable aversion for soap. It was all he could do to restrain his inclination to call vociferously for a number of small tin boats and birch-bark canoes, without which Jack never bathed. He did conquer it, however, and at the end of a half-hour managed to reach the end of his bath, though as a rule he had hitherto rarely expended more than ten minutes in his morning ablutions. Then came another difficulty. He found himself utterly unable to stand still while he was putting on his clothes, and finally Mrs. Jarley had to be called in to comb his hair for him. Jarley himself could no more have taken the time to part it satisfactorily than he could have flown.

"What is the matter with you?" said Mrs. Jarley, as she made several ineffectual attempts to get his truant locks into shape. "Have you caught St. Vitus's dance?"

"Nothing's the matter with me," returned Jarley, standing on one foot and hopping up and down thereon. "I feel well, that's all."

And then he tore out of the room, mounted the banisters, and slid downstairs in an utterly unbecoming fashion, considering that he was a man of thirty-five and the head of the house. He felt a little ashamed of himself in the midst of this operation, particularly when he observed that the waitress was standing in the hall below-stairs, looking at him with eyes that betokened an astonishment as creditable to her as it was disgraceful to him. He tried vainly to stop his wild descent when he noted her presence. He clutched madly at the banisters, turning his hands and knees into brakes in his effort to save his dignity; but once started he could not stop, and as a consequence he went down like a flash, slid precipitately over the newel-post, and landed with a cry of mortification on the hall floor. He was not hurt, save in his self-esteem, and gathering himself together, he endeavored to walk with dignity into the dining-room; but he had hardly reached the door, when he was overcome with a mad desire to whoop—and whoop he did. As a consequence of the whoop Jack was scolded when Mrs. Jarley came down. She had no idea that Jarley himself could be so blind to propriety as to yell in so indecorous a fashion; and when poor little Jack was upbraided, Jarley, despite his good intention to confess himself the guilty party, discovered that the only act he was capable of was giggling. Jack of course wept, and the more he wept the more Jarley giggled, and was taken to task for encouraging the boy in his misbehavior.

During breakfast he was unusually demonstrative. He could not bring himself to await his turn when the potatoes were passed, and in his eagerness to get at them he overturned his coffee, which served to turn the tables a little, for Jack giggled at the mishap, while Jarley became the centre of Mrs. Jarley's displeasure. What was worse, Jarley, try as he might, could not resist the temptation to kick the legs of the table, and it was not until Mrs. Jarley had threatened to dismiss Jack from her presence, supposing that he must, of course, be the offender, that Jarley assumed the burden of his misbehavior.

It was not until Jarley set out to his office, however, that he realized the real horror of his condition. Instead of riding down-town on one cable-car, as was his wont, he found himself trying, boy-like, to steal a ride by jumping on a car platform and standing there until the conductor came along, when he would hop off, ride a block or two on the end of a truck, and then try a new car, so beating his way down-town. Then he arrived at his office. I have neglected to state that while invention was Jarley's avocation, he was by profession a lawyer, being the junior member of a highly successful firm, at the head of which was no less a person than the eminent William J. Baker, whose record at the bar is too well known to require any further words of mine to recall him to the minds of my readers. Jarley had not been in the office more than ten minutes before he realized that he might better have remained at home while the influence of Jack's wasted energy was within him. He was in a state of irrepressibility. No matter how strongly he endeavored to hold himself in check he could not do so, and his day down-town was like the days of most boys who are permitted to spend a morning and an afternoon with their parent in the workshop. The first thing he did on reaching his desk was to roll back its folding top. This pleased him unaccountably. He had never before imagined that so much fun could be got out of the rolling top of a desk, and for a full quarter of an hour he pulled it backward and forward, and so noisily withal that Mr. Baker sent one of the clerks in to see if the office-boy had not become suddenly insane.

Recalled to his true self for the moment, Jarley endeavored to get down to work, but as he made the endeavor he became conscious that a revolving chair has very pleasing qualities to one who is fond of twirling. Round and round he twirled, and as he twirled he grabbed up his cane, and in a moment realized that he was playing that he was on a merry-go-round, and trying to secure a renewal of his right to ride by catching imaginary rings on the end of his stick. This operation consumed quite five minutes more of his time, and was accompanied by such a vast number of "Hoop-las" that Mr. Baker came himself to see what was the cause of the unseemly racket. Fortunately for Jarley, just as his partner reached the doorway, the chair had reached the limit of its twirling capacity, and having been unscrewed as far as it could be, toppled over on to the floor, with Jarley underneath. "What in the world does this mean, Jarley?" said Mr. Baker, severely, as he assisted his fallen partner to rise.

"My chair has come apart," laughed Jarley, getting red in the face.

"That's the great trouble with that kind of chair," said Mr. Baker. "You don't seem to mind the mishap very much."

"Oh no," said Jarley, gritting his teeth in his determination not to follow his mad impulse to jump on Mr. Baker's shoulders and clamor for a picky-back ride. "No; I don't mind little things like that much."

Here he stood on his right leg, as he had done before breakfast, and began to hop.

"Hurt your foot?" queried Mr. Baker.

Jarley seized at the suggestion with all the despairing vigor of a drowning man clutching at a rope.

"Yes; a little, but not enough to mention," he said; whereupon, much to his relief, Mr. Baker turned away and went back to his own room.

"This will never do," Jarley moaned to himself when his partner had gone. "If one of my clients should come in—"

Then he stopped and grinned like a mischievous lad. He had caught sight of an old water-meter that had been used as an exhibit in a case he had once tried against the city in behalf of an inventor, who had been led to believe that the water board would adopt his patent and compel every householder to buy one for the registration of water consumed. What fun it would be to take that apart, he thought, and thinking thus was enough to set him about the task. He locked his door, moved the strange-looking contrivance out into the middle of the room, and tried to unscrew the top of it with his eraser. The delicate blade of this improvised screw-driver snapped off in an instant, whereupon Jarley tried the scissors, with similar results. After a half-hour of this he gave up the idea of taking the meter apart, but his soul immediately became possessed of another idea, which was to see if it worked. The pursuit of this brought him the most deliriously joyful sensations; and for an hour he devoted himself to filling the machine up with water drawn from a faucet at one side of his room, and poured into the meter from a drinking-glass. It was not until the hour was up that he observed that the water after passing through the meter came out upon the carpet, and it is probable that even then he would not have noticed it had not the tenants below sent up to inquire if there was not something wrong with the water-pipes overhead.

When Jarley realized what had happened he wisely determined to give up business for the day. While the spirit of Jack was within him, the business he might transact was not likely to prove of value to himself or to any one else. So he put on his hat and coat, called a cab, and started for home. His experiences in the cab were quite of a kind with the experiences of the morning, and attended with no little personal danger. He would lean against the cab door and put his arm out and try to touch horse-cars as they passed. Once or twice he nearly had his head knocked off by sticking it out of the windows; but by some happy chance he got interested in the cab curtains and the inviting little strings, which, when pulled, made them fly up with a snap. Absorbed in this occupation, he drove on, and gave up all such dangerous experiments as playing tag with horse-cars and trucks, and arrived at home in time for luncheon unhurt.

Mrs. Jarley was somewhat alarmed at the unexpected return of Mr. Jarley, but was content with his explanation that while he never felt better in his life, he deemed it best to return and attend to his work in the privacy of his own home. For the proper accomplishment of this work he said that he thought he would use Jack's nursery on the attic floor, where he could be quiet, and he asked as an especial favor that he might be left alone with Jack for the balance of the day.

He had made up his mind that his experiment, while a success in one way, were not what he expected in another way. He had found Jack's energy very energetic indeed, but not suited for adult use, and he even found himself wondering why he had not thought of that before. However, the thing to do now was to get rid of that spirit as soon as possible. If it had become permanently a part of him, he had reached his second childhood, which for a man of thirty-five is a disturbing thought. So disturbing was it that Jarley resolved upon a heroic measure to cure himself. Similia similibus struck him as being the only possible cure, and so, regardless of the possible consequences to his physical being, he "permitted" Jack to be with him up-stairs "while he worked," as he put it to Mrs. Jarley, though all others were forbidden to approach.

The result was as he had foreseen. Jack's energy in Jack, pure and unadulterated, had very little trouble in wearing out the diluted energy which his father had acquired from his superfluous stores, and night coming on found Jarley, after a three hours' steady circus with his son, in his normal condition mentally. But physically! What a poor wreck of a human system was his when the last bit of the boyish spirit was consumed! Had he worked at brick-laying for a week without rest Jarley could not have been more prostrated physically. But he was happy. His tests had proved that he could do certain things, but the results he had expected as to the value of those things were not what he had hoped for. At any rate, his experiment gave him greater sympathy with his boy than he had ever had before, and they have become great chums. The greatest disappointment of the whole affair is Jack's, who wonders why it is that he and his father have no more afternoon acrobatics such as they had in the play-room that day, but until he is a good many years older his father cannot tell him, for the boy could not in the present stage of his intellectual development understand him if he tried.

As for Mr. Baker and the people at the office, they were not at all astonished to hear the next day that Jarley was laid up, and would probably, not appear at the office again for a week, although they were a little surprised when they learned that his trouble was rheumatism, and not softening of the brain.