idn't
tell you--when I was on the other side, you know--it was rather
dangerous--well, as I was saying--it looked--oh, it didn't look at all
like this."

A cloud floated overhead, throwing its great shadow over the field
where we lay. The shadow passed over the mountain's brow and
reappeared far below, a rapidly decreasing blot, flying eastward over
the golden green. My wife and I exchanged glances once more.

Somehow, the shadow lingered over us all. As we went home, the Bredes
went side by side along the narrow path, and my wife and I walked
together.

"_Should you think_," she asked me, "that a man would climb the
Matterhorn the very first year he was married?"

"I don't know, my dear," I answered, evasively; "this isn't the first
year I have been married, not by a good many, and I wouldn't climb
it--for a farm."

"You know what I mean," she said.

I did.

* * * * *

When we reached the boarding-house, Mr. Jacobus took me aside.

"You know," he began his discourse, "my wife she uset to live in N'
York!"

I didn't know, but I said "Yes."

"She says the numbers on the streets runs criss-cross-like.
Thirty-four's on one side o' the street an' thirty-five on t'other.
How's that?"

"That is the invariable rule, I believe."

"Then--I say--these here new folk that you 'n' your wife seem so
mighty taken up with--d'ye know anything about 'em?"

"I know nothing about the character of your boarders, Mr. Jacobus," I
replied, conscious of some irritability. "If I choose to associate
with any of them----"

"Jess so--jess so!" broke in Jacobus. "I hain't nothin' to say ag'inst
yer sosherbil'ty. But do ye _know_ them?"

"Why, certainly not," I replied.

"Well--that was all I wuz askin' ye. Ye see, when _he_ come here to
take the rooms--you wasn't here then--he told my wife that he lived at
number thirty-four in his street. An' yistiddy _she_ told her that
they lived at number thirty-five. He said he lived in an
apartment-house. Now there can't be no apartment-house on two sides of
the same street, kin they?"

"What street was it?" I inquired, wearily.

"Hundred 'n' twenty-first street."

"May be," I replied, still more wearily. "That's Harlem. Nobody knows
what people will do in Harlem."

I went up to my wife's room.

"Don't you think it's queer?" she asked me.

"I think I'll have a talk with that young man to-night," I said, "and
see if he can give some account of