pe manhood as brings the
groceries, and the hardened villainy that fetches ice and with deep voice
breaks the treble of the neighborhood. But beyond these there are no men
in sight save the pantalooned exception who mows the grass, and with the
whirr of his clicking knives sounds the prelude of the summer. I'll say by
way of no more than a parenthetical flick of notice that his eastern
front, conspicuous from the rear as he bends forward over his machine,
shows a patched and jointed mullionry that is not unlike the tracery of
some cathedral's rounded apse. But I go too far in imagery. Plain speech
is best. I'll waive the gothic touch.

But observe this sluggard who issues from his door! He knows he is
suspected--that the finger is uplifted and the chin is wagging. And so he
takes on a smarter stride with a pretense of briskness, to proclaim
thereby the virtue of having risen early despite his belated appearance,
and what mighty business he has despatched within the morning.

But you will get no clue as to whether he has been closeted with the law,
or whether it is domestic faction--plumbers or others of their ilk (if
indeed plumbers really have any ilk and do not, as I suspect, stand
unbrothered like the humped Richard in the play). Or maybe some swirl of
fancy blew upon him as he was spooning up his breakfast, which he must set
down in an essay before the matter cool. Or an epic may have thumped
within him. Let us hope that his thoughts this cool spring morning have
not been heated to such bloody purpose that he has killed a score of men
upon his page, and that it is with the black gore of the ink-pot on him
that he has called for his boots to face the world. You remember the
fellow who kills him "some six or seven dozens of Scots at a breakfast,
washes his hands, and says to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want
work.'"

Such ferocity should not sully this fair May morning, when there are
sounds only of carpet-beating, the tinkle of the man who is out to grind
your knives and the recurrent melody of the connoisseur of rags and
bottles who stands in his cart as he drives his lean and pointed horse. At
the cry of this perfumed Brummel--if you be not gone in years too far--as
often as he prepares to shout the purpose of his quest, you'll put a
question to him, "Hey, there, what do you feed your wife on?" And then his
answer will come pat to your expectation, "Pa-a-a-per Ra-a-a-gs,
Pa-a-a-per Ra-a-a-gs!" If the pe