a face done in water-colors, who called at my office one
day to ask about him, an' who proved to my satisfaction that she
was his wife, an' who remarked with real, patrician accent when I
told her the truth about him: 'Ah, g'wan, yer kiddin' me.'

"I began to explore the mind of Lizzie, an' she acted as my guide
in the matter. For her troubles the girl was about equally
indebted to her parents an' the Smythe school. Now the Smythe
school had been founded by the Reverend Hopkins Smythe, an
Englishman who for years had been pastor of the First
Congregational Church--a soothin' man an' a favorite of the rich
New-Yorkers. People who hadn't slept for weeks found repose in the
First Congregational Church an' Sanitarium of Pointview. They
slept an' snored while the Reverend Hopkins wept an' roared. His
rhetoric was better than bromide or sulphonal. In grateful
recollection of their slumbers, they set him up in business.

"Now I'm agoin' to talk as mean as I feel. Sometimes I get tired
o' bein' a gentleman an' knock off for a season o' rest an'
refreshment. Here goes! The school has some good girls in it, but
most of 'em are indolent candy-eaters. Their life is one long,
sweet dream broken by nightmares of indigestion. Their study is
mainly a bluff; their books a merry jest; their teachers a butt of
ridicule. They're the veriest little pagans. Their religion is,
in fact, a kind of Smythology. Its High Priest is the Reverend
Hopkins. Its Jupiter is self. Its lesser gods are princes, dukes,
earls, counts, an' barons. Its angels are actors an' tenors. Its
baptism is flattery. Poverty an' work are its twin hells.
Matrimony is its heaven, an' a slippery place it is. They revel in
the best sellers an' the worst smellers. They gossip of intrigue
an' scandal. They get their lessons if they have time. They cheat
in their examinations. If the teacher objects she is promptly an'
generally insulted. She has to submit or go--for the girls stand
together. It's a sort of school-girls' union. They'd quit in a
body if their fun were seriously interrupted, an' Mr. Smythe
couldn't afford that, you know. He wouldn't admit it, but they've
got him buffaloed.

"Lizzie no sooner got through than she set out with her mother to
find the prince. She struck Aleck in Italy."

Socrates leaned back and laughed.

"Now, if you please, I'll climb back on my pedestal," he said.

"Thank God! Lizzie began to rise above her edu