e slot; the slot--but no matter. We have no carpets
now. The Perfect Automatic stands in the garret with all its original
varnish on. At its feet sits a half-used can of "Beesene, The Prince
of Floor Pastes."

We have only hard-wood floors now, which we treated, upon the strength
of the label, with this Prince of Pastes, "Beesene"--"guaranteed not to
show wear or dirt or to grow gritty; water-proof, gravel-proof. No rug
will ruck on it, no slipper stick to it. Needs no weighted brush.
Self-shining. The only perfect Floor Wax known. One box will do all
the floors you have."

Indeed, half a box did all the floors we have. No slipper would stick
to the paste, but the paste would stick to the slipper; and the greasy
Prince did in spots all the floors we have: the laundry floor, the
attic floor, and the very boards of the vegetable cellar.

I am young yet. I have not had time to collect my twelve two-horse
loads. But I am getting them fast.

Only the other day a tall lean man came to the side door, asking after
my four boys by name, and inquiring when my new book would be off the
stocks, and, incidentally, showing me a patent-applied-for device
called "The Fat Man's Friend."

"The Friend" was a steel-wire hoop, shaped and jointed like a pair of
calipers, but knobbed at its points with little metal balls. The
instrument was made to open and spring closed about the Fat Man's neck,
and to hold, by means of a clasp on each side, a napkin, or bib, spread
securely over the Fat Man's bosom.

"Ideal thing, now, is n't it?" said the agent, demonstrating with his
handkerchief.

"Why--yes"--I hesitated--"for a fat man, perhaps."

"Just so," he replied, running me over rapidly with a professional eye;
"but you know, Professor, that when a man's forty, or thereabouts, it's
the nature of him to stouten. Once past forty he's liable to pick up
any day. And when he starts, you know as well as I, Professor, when he
starts there's nothing fattens faster than a man of forty. You ought
to have one of these 'Friends' on hand."

"But fat does n't run in my family," I protested, my helpless,
single-handed condition being plainly manifest in my tone.

"No matter," he rejoined, "look at me! Six feet three, and thin as a
lath. I 'm what you might call a walking skeleton, ready to disjoint,
as the poet says, and eat all my meals in fear, which I would do if 't
wa'n't for this little 'Friend.' I can't eat without it. I miss