llen soot than over spilt milk.
He would calmly have adopted prompt measures to ameliorate the situation,
and after the servants were fairly at work would have taken his wife
apart and pointed out to her, in well-chosen language, that here was only
another instance of his superior wisdom. One of a more virulent type,
but still a philosopher, might have indulged in mirth--quiet sarcastic
mirth. No person of a truly philosophic cast of mind and with a rooted
antipathy to damning would have sworn lustily as I did.

I remember taking little Fred, my namesake and eldest son, to skate with
me one winter's afternoon on a suburban pond. He did famously for a
tyro, but we both wearied at last of his everlasting strife to maintain
the perpendicular, and I was conscious of a rush of joy when he became
completely absorbed in watching a man who was fishing for pickerel. Have
you ever fished for pickerel through a hole in the ice? If so you will
recall that it is chilly and rather dispiriting work, especially if the
fish are shy. They certainly were shy that afternoon, for the individual
in question had angled long and bagged nothing, as I gleaned from the
answers to the direct interrogatories put by my urchin during the few
minutes I stood paternally by and watched the proceedings.

"Caught anything?"

"Nop."

"Had a bite?"

"Nop."

"How long you been fishing?"

"An hour."

As I glided away light-heartedly on the delicious curves of the outer
edge, I reflected that he was evidently a persevering pot-hunter who
would not be easily discouraged, and that I could count upon his
engrossing the attention of my offspring for a considerable period.
Accordingly, I was surprised some five minutes later to observe the
fisherman (who wore no skates) shambling across the pond toward the
shore. Glancing from him to his late station I perceived a little group
of skaters gathered around my son and heir, who was dabbling with a stick
in the abandoned hole. They appeared to be diverted by something and one
of them, my friend Harry Bolles, who had his handkerchief up to his
mouth, made a bee-line to meet me. From his lips I learned what had
happened, which was this wise: The horny-handed pot-hunter, having
presently pulled a solitary pickerel out upon the ice and freed it from
his hook, turned aside to cut another piece of bait; whereupon my hopeful
picked up the fish and popped it back into its native element without so
much as a