Mr. Devoe's presentation of the facts and possibilities was so convincing that both Alice and I recognized the propriety of securing his services. The sum of ten cents per diem seemed very trifling; it was not until after Mr. Devoe had departed with our contract in his pocket that we began to realize that, however insignificant ten cents per diem might be, seventy cents per week was not to be sneezed at, while twenty-one dollars for the season was simply a gross extravagance. I was in favor of recalling and annulling our contract with Mr. Devoe, but Alice insisted that we should keep strictly in line with the other neighbors, doing nothing likely to stigmatize us either as mean or as unfashionable.
A day or two after this incident a ruffianly looking fellow called on us to "make arrangements," as he said, about hauling away our garbage when we got moved into our new house. I told the fellow that the city sent a garbage wagon around every week to remove the garbage free of cost. To this the fellow replied that the city did its work carelessly, that the wagon was invariably overloaded, and that no reliance could be placed upon the garbage boxes being emptied if that responsible duty were intrusted to the city employés.
The fellow seemed to know what he was talking about, and his representations were so fair that finally I agreed to pay him twenty-five cents a week for hauling the garbage away. That evening I heard from Mr. Baylor that the scheme was a vulgar bit of blackmail; that the fellow was driver for one of the city wagons and made a practice of extorting fees from householders for doing work which he was already paid to do. I felt grievously outraged and I threatened to report this infamy to the municipal authorities. But Mr. Baylor and other friends assured me that these infamous practices of blackmail were encouraged at the City Hall, and that I would simply be laughed at if I ventured to complain.
It was about this time, too, that I paid a man four dollars to clean out the catch basin in the rear of our premises. The man told me that the catch basin was "reeking with the germs of disease." I did n't see how that could well be, since the sewer had not been laid six weeks. However, the man insisted, and he talked so portentously of bacteria and bacilli and morbiferous microbes that finally in a terror of apprehension I gave him four dollars and bade him do his saving work and do it quickly.
When the neighbors heard of this incident they unanimously pronounced me a fool, accompanying that opprobrious stigmatization with an epithet which my religious convictions prohibit me from recording.
XXIII
ALICE'S NIGHT WATCHMAN
From what I have already told you it is likely that you have gathered that Alice and I had good reason to conclude that being a householder was by no means as cheap an enjoyment as could be conceived of. We recalled the words of the sagacious and prudent Mr. Denslow. "When you get a place of your own," said that wise man, "you will find that there will be a thousand annoying little demands for your money where now there is one." Our other friend, Mr. Black, had expressed the same idea when he told us that "a house-owner never gets through paying out." If Alice and I had had any thought upon the matter at all it was to the effect that when we had a home of our own we got rid forever of the monstrous bugaboo of house-rent at sixty dollars a month. We supposed that all our spare time could be devoted to counting the money we were going to save by getting out of a grasping, avaricious landlord's clutches. Experience is a severe teacher; Alice and I have found out a great many things since we began to have direct dealings with builders, masons, plumbers, painters et id omne genus, as well as with sprinklers, day laborers, landscape gardeners, fruit-tree peddlers, lightning-rod agents, and others of that ilk.
We duly became aware that we were losing a good deal at the hands of nocturnal depredators. Our flower beds were despoiled with amazing regularity; the broken lath and old lumber which had been piled up in the back yard, and which Alice intended to use eventually for kindling, disappeared mysteriously, and the carpenters reported finding evidences every morning that some person or persons had been tramping through the house the night before.