hello_ might make some impression on them, such a
stupendous temperance lecture it is!" I groaned.

"If _you_ would leave the theatre alone you wouldn't be quite so short
as you are now," asserted Uncle Nate, almost popping open with
contempt.

"'Short,' man! 'Short' in your throat!" shouted I, forgetting myself.

"Yes, short; and it's my opinion you've shorted me in this business."

I could not kick our uncle out of his premises, so I got out myself,
not to return; and I left in debt to him as well as to the rest of the
world. I went homeward. Though it was August, a cold wind blew from the
lake, whipping the large, flapping leaves of the castor-bean plants in
the front yards to rags. I quaffed the lake in the wet wind. "No
wonder," I thought, "we're three parts water: our world is." A young
fellow on the street-car platform smoked a cigar that smelled like
pigweed, cabbage-stalks and other garden rubbish burning, and made me
sick. He enjoyed it, though: in fact, all, including the street-car
driver himself, were on that day more than usually engaged in the
intense enjoyment of being Chicagoans. All but me, miserable. The very
windows and pavements of our streets, being clean and cold, sent a
chill to my bones.

When I reached home Lydia was pinning on her habergeon, her neck-armor
of ribbons and lace, before the mirror. "What is this?" I asked,
pointing to the suspicious note, still pinned to the cushion.

"That's the note that has to be found in my room in the play of _Lost
in London_," she answered, turning the great lamps of her eyes on mine.

As I had nothing to say to this, I went and lay down on the sofa before
the parlor-fire. Though a grate in January is a poor affair--I never
knew any human being who really depended on one in winter to speak in
praise of it--on a cool August day it is delicious. I fell into a warm
doze before the fire, then into a series of agreeable naps. When Lydia
said supper was ready I did not want any, and at bedtime I was too
stiff to move easily.

After this, during several weeks, my bedchamber became to me a place
full of sweet dreams and rest and quiet breathing. Luxurious
indifference, a pleasure in hearing the crickets in the grass of the
midsummer gardens, and voices talking afar--a satisfaction in seeing
the polished walnut, marble and china and plenteous linen towels of my
washstand, my altar to Hebe, and in seeing through a window,

While day sank or mounted higher