d be used for something;
the things that were used for nothing had no attractions for him. After
this he developed further, and discovered new uses for old objects. Mrs.
Carraway's parlor vases were turned into receptacles for matches, or
papers, according to their size. The huge Satsuma vase became a more or
less satisfactory bill-file; and the cloisonne jar, by virtue of its
great durability, Mr. Carraway used as a receptacle for the family
golf-balls, much to the trepidation of his good wife, who considered
that the vase, like some women, had in its beauty a sufficient cause for
existence, and who would have preferred going without golf forever to
the destruction of her treasured bit of bric-a-brac.

Mrs. Carraway did her best to stay the steady advance in utilitarianism
of her husband. She could bide with him in most matters. In fact, until
it came to the use of the cloisonne jar for a golf-ball reservoir, she
considered the idea at least harmless, and was forced to admit that it
indeed held many good points.

"I think it is perfectly proper," she said, "to consider all things from
the point of view of their utility. I do not believe in sending a
ball-dress to a poor woman who is starving or suffering for want of
coal, but I must say, John, that you carry your theory too far when you
insist on using an object for some purpose for which it was manifestly
never intended."

"But who is to say what a thing is manifestly made for?" demanded
Carraway. "You don't know, or at least you can't say positively, what
one of many possible uses the designer and maker of any object had in
mind when he designed and made that especial object. This particular
vase was fashioned by a heathen. It is beautiful and graceful, but
beyond producing something beautiful and graceful, how can you say what
other notion that heathen had as to its possible usefulness? He may have
made it to hold flowers. He may have intended it for a water-jug. He may
have considered it a suitable receptacle in which its future favored
owner might keep his tobacco, or his opium, or any one of the thousand
and one things that you can put in a vase with a hope of getting it out
again."

"Well, we know he didn't intend it for golf-balls, anyhow," said Mrs.
Carraway. "For the very simple reason that the heathen don't play golf."

"They may play some kind of a game which is a heathen variation of
golf," observed Mr. Carraway, coldly.

"That couldn't be," persist