who talk about their servants--I have a
friend who bores me to death because he has a Jap butler he believes was
at Mukden. But I think I am justified in calling your attention to
ours--Mr. Peters, the Hermit of Baldpate Mountain. Cooking is merely his
avocation. He is writing a book."

"That guy," remarked Cargan, incredulous.

"What do you know about that?" asked Mr. Bland. "It certainly will get a
lot of hot advertising if it ever appears. It's meant to prove that all
the trouble in the world has been caused by woman."

The mayor considered.

"He's off--he's nutty, that fellow," he announced. "It ain't women that
cause all of the trouble."

"Thank you, Mr. Cargan," said Miss Norton, smiling.

"Anybody'd know it to look at you, miss," replied the mayor in his most
gallant manner. Then he added hastily: "And you, ma'am," with a nod in
the other woman's direction.

"I don't know as I got the evidence in my face," responded Mrs. Norton
easily, "but women don't make no trouble, I know that. I think the man's
crazy, myself, and I'd tell him so if he wasn't the cook." She paused,
for Peters had entered the room. There was silence while he changed the
courses. "It's getting so now you can't say the things to a cook you can
to a king," she finished, after the hermit had retired.

"Ahem--Mr. Cargan," put in Professor Bolton, "you give it as your
opinion that woman is no trouble-maker, and I must admit that I agree
with your premise in general, although occasionally she may cause a--a
slight annoyance. Undeniably, there is a lot of trouble in the world. To
whose efforts do you ascribe it?"

The mayor ran his thick fingers through his hair.

"I got you," he said, "and I got your answer, too. Who makes the
trouble? Who's made it from the beginning of time? The reformers, Doc.
Yes, sir. Who was the first reformer? The snake in the garden of Eden.
This hermit guy probably has that affair laid down at woman's door. Not
much. Everything was running all right around the garden, and then the
snake came along. It's a twenty to one shot he'd just finished a series
of articles on 'The Shame of Eden' for a magazine. 'What d'ye mean?' he
says to the woman, 'by letting well enough alone? Things are all wrong
here. The present administration is running everything into the ground.
I can tell you a few things that will open your eyes. What's that? What
you don't know won't hurt you? The old cry', he says, 'the old cry
against which