r had one, either, because there is never room
in the hall-way of a modern apartment both for a hat-tree and a
passage-way. But occasionally I visit at the homes of friends who
boast one of these arboreal adornments, and renew my acquaintance
with the species. I was to take a walk with one of these friends the
other day.

"Wait," he said, pausing in the hall, "till I get a pair of gloves."
Stooping over, he pulled at the hat-tree drawer. First it stuck on one
side; then it stuck on the other side; then it yielded altogether,
without warning. My friend sat down on the floor, the ridiculously
shallow drawer in his hand, between his feet a sorry array of the odds
and ends of the outside toilet,--broken hat pins, old veils, buttons,
winter gloves rolled into wads, old gloves, new gloves, gloves pulled
off in a hurry with the fingers inside out, dirty white gloves
belonging to his charming sister. I turned away, feeling that I gazed
on a domestic exposure. My friend spoke softly to the drawer.

"Sh!" said I, "your family! Put the drawer back."

"I will not put it back," he said. "We would never get started. Let
the--"

Again I cautioned him, and we set out on our walk leaving the litter
on the floor; and as we tramped through the marvelous sky-scraper
wilderness which is Manhattan, we talked of hat-trees, and the
futility of human effort, and sighed for a new Carlyle to write the
philosophy of the hat-tree drawer.

How well I remembered the hat-tree that sheltered my caps in youth,
beneath the protecting foliage of the paternal greatcoat and the
maternal bonnet! I did not always use it; the piano was more
convenient, or the floor. But there it stood in the hall in all its
black-walnut impressive ugliness, with side racks for umbrellas, and
square, metal drip-pans always full of the family rubbers. There was a
mirror in the centre, so high I had to climb three stairs to see how
uncle's hat fitted my small head. There were pegs up both sides; but,
as is the way with hat-trees, only the top ones were useful; whatever
was hung on them buried everything below. The only really safe place
was the peak on top, just above the carved face of Minerva. Sometimes
the paternal greatcoat lovingly carried off the maternal shawl of a
morning, which would be found later somewhere between the door and the
station. And this hat-tree also had a drawer, of course. There was the
rub, indeed!

Summer or winter, wet or dry, that drawer alway