ulous
bird known as the epidermis,' says I.

"'A woman like that,' says Andy, 'ought to lead a man to the highest
positions of opulence and fame.'

"'I misdoubt,' says I, 'if any woman ever helped a man to secure a job
any more than to have his meals ready promptly and spread a report
that the other candidate's wife had once been a shoplifter. They are
no more adapted for business and politics,' says I, 'than Algernon
Charles Swinburne is to be floor manager at one of Chuck Connor's
annual balls. I know,' says I to Andy, 'that sometimes a woman seems
to step out into the kalsomine light as the charge d'affaires of her
man's political job. But how does it come out? Say, they have a neat
little berth somewhere as foreign consul of record to Afghanistan or
lockkeeper on the Delaware and Raritan Canal. One day this man finds
his wife putting on her overshoes and three months supply of bird seed
into the canary's cage. "Sioux Falls?" he asks with a kind of hopeful
light in his eye. "No, Arthur," says she, "Washington. We're wasted
here," says she. "You ought to be Toady Extraordinary to the Court of
St. Bridget or Head Porter of the Island of Porto Rico. I'm going to
see about it."

"'Then this lady,' I says to Andy, 'moves against the authorities at
Washington with her baggage and munitions, consisting of five dozen
indiscriminating letters written to her by a member of the Cabinet
when she was 15; a letter of introduction from King Leopold to the
Smithsonian Institution, and a pink silk costume with canary colored
spats.

"'Well and then what?' I goes. 'She has the letters printed in the
evening papers that match her costume, she lectures at an informal
tea given in the palm room of the B. & O. Depot and then calls on the
President. The ninth Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Labor, the
first aide-de-camp of the Blue Room and an unidentified colored man
are waiting there to grasp her by the hands--and feet. They carry her
out to S.W. B. street and leave her on a cellar door. That ends it.
The next time we hear of her she is writing postcards to the Chinese
Minister asking him to get Arthur a job in a tea store.'

"'Then,' says Andy, 'you don't think Mrs. Avery will land the
Marshalship for Bill?'

"'I do not,' says I. 'I do not wish to be a septic, but I doubt if
she can do as well as you and me could have done.'

"'I don't agree with you,' says Andy. 'I'll bet you she does. I'm
proud of having a higher opinion