if to clear his thinking faculties from a load while he
considered the grave question. "Do with him? Do with him? Oh! I'll tell
you." Here the speaker's eyes flashed with the light of a great
discovery. "Tether him like a horse, with a certain limited area to feed
in. D'ye see? D'ye see?"

"A horse? Can't say that I do," returned Mr. Marcus Wilkeson.

"And I can't say that _I_ do, either," added Mr. Matthew Maltboy. "A
horse! Why not say a donkey? I should see it quite as well."

"As you please," resumed the impetuous Overtop. "A donkey, then. Perhaps
the metaphor will be better. What I mean--what you two are so dull as
not to see--is to put this unreliable Maltboy on a moderate allowance of
flirtation; to keep him, for example, within the limits of this block.
D'ye see? D'ye catch the idea?"

"It begins to dawn on me," said Wilkeson.

"And I catch a ray or two of it," added Maltboy. But--"

"Excuse me," interrupted Overtop, stepping between his two companions,
and gesticulating wildly at each of them in turn, as if he would dart
conviction into them like electricity from the tips of his fingers.
"Here is a block full of people. Their houses are joined together, or
nearly so, all the way round. The inhabitants hear each other's pianos
playing and each other's babies squalling all day long. If a fire breaks
out in the block, it may be all burned down together. If the measles
makes its appearance on the block, it probably runs through it. Is there
not, therefore, a community of dangers among us; and if of dangers, why
not of pleasures? Why should not the inhabitants of a block be regarded
as a distinct settlement, or tribe, whose members owe kindness and
goodwill to each other before the rest of the world? Looking at it in
the light of humanity, is it not our duty to know our neighbors?"

"And Matt would say, To love them too--that is, the young and pretty
ones," observed "Wilkeson.

"Precisely," said Maltboy.

"Excuse me," continued Overtop, deprecating further interruption with
both hands. "That is the point I was just coming to. Since Maltboy
_must_ have female society, and cannot be kept out of it by main force,
why not give him the range of this block? Catch the idea, eh?--in its
full force and bearings?"

"Wilkeson and Maltboy implied, by nods, that they caught it.

"And--ahem--I think I'll take the same range too," added Overtop. "Not
because I care a pin about female society, but just to test my
new t