"Thank you," said the Idiot. "It's not original with me. My father drew it. But despite my personal regard for Sammie, I do think something ought to be done to alleviate the sufferings of the parent. Take the mother of a boy like Sammie, for instance. She has him all day and generally all night. Sammie's father goes to business at eight o'clock and returns at six, thinking he has worked hard, and wonders why it is that Sammie's mother looks so confoundedly tired. It makes him slightly irritable. She has been at home taking things easy all day. He has been in town working like a dog. What right has she to be tired? He doesn't realize that she has had to entertain Sammie at those hours of the day when Sammie is in his best form. She has found him trying to turn somersaults at the top of the back stairs; she has patiently borne his musical efforts on the piano, upon which he practises daily for a few minutes, generally with a hammer or a stick, or something else equally well calculated to beautify the keys; she has had to interfere in Sammie's well-meant efforts to instruct his small brother in the art of being an Indian who can whoop and scalp all in the same breath, thereby incurring for the moment Sammie's undying hatred; she has heard Sammie using language which an inconsiderate hired man has not scrupled to use in Sammie's presence; she has, with terror in her soul, watched him at play with a knife which some friend of the family who admires Sammie had given him, and has again incurred his enmity by finally, to avoid nervous prostration, taken that treasure from him. In short, she has passed a day of real tragedy. Sammie is farce to me, comedy to his father, and tragedy to his mother. Cannot something be done for her? Is there no way by means of which Sammie can be entertained during the day, for entertained he must be, that does not utterly destroy the nervous system of his mother? Can't some inventive genius who has studied the small boy, who knows the little ins and outs of his nature, and who, above all, sympathizes with those ins and outs, put his mind on the life of the woman of domestic inclination, and do something to make her life less of a burden and more of a joy?"

"You are the man to do it," said the Bibliomaniac. "An inventive genius such as you are ought to be able to solve the problem."

"Perhaps he ought to be," said the Idiot; "but we are not all what we ought to be, I among the number. Almost anything seems possible to me until I think of the mother at home all day with a dear, sweet, bright, energetic boy like Sammie. Then, I confess, I am utterly at a loss to know what to do."

And then, as none of the boarders had any solution of the problem to suggest, I presume there was none among them who knew "How To Be Tranquil Though A Mother."

Perhaps when women take up invention matters will seem more hopeful.

XII
Dreamaline

"Well, Mr. Idiot," said Mr. Pedagog, as the guests gathered about the table, "how goes the noble art of invention with you? You've been at it for some time now. Do you find that you have succeeded in your self-imposed mission and made the condition of the civilized less unbearable?"

"Frankly, Mr. Pedagog, I have failed," said the Idiot, sadly. "Failed egregiously. I cannot find that of all the many schemes I have evolved for the benefit of the human race any single one has been adopted by those who would be benefited. Wherefore, with the exception of Dreamaline, which I have not yet developed to my satisfaction, I shall do no more inventing. What is the use? Even you, gentlemen, here have tacitly declined to accept my plan for the elimination of irritation on Waffle Days, a plan at once simple, picturesque, and efficacious. With such discouragement at home, what hope have I for better fortune abroad?"

"It is dreadful to be an unappreciated genius!" said the Bibliomaniac, gruffly. "It's better to be a plain lunatic. A plain lunatic is at least free from the consciousness of failure."