imself. We did this out of no special regard for Mr. Krome, for,
aside from pure selfish considerations, Mr. Krome is no more to us than
we are to Hecuba; but we desired to facilitate him in the work he had
engaged to do for us.

After the window frames had been at the fellow's shop a fortnight, I
began to suggest that their return would gratify me to the degree of
rapture. Mr. Krome put us off with one excuse and another (all equally
plausible) and presently a month had rolled by. Like the man in the
fable who tried brickbats when kind words were no longer of avail, I
threatened to turn the work of glazing over to another glazier who was
not so busy with his lying as to prevent him from attending to the
duties of his legitimate trade. This served as a mild remedy, for the
window frames presently began to arrive one at a time, and I actually
felt like calling upon our pastor for a special service of praise and
thanksgiving when finally those windows were all in place.

The one thing that Alice, the neighbors, Uncle Si, and I were amicably
agreed upon was the opinion that Mr. Krome, for a boss painter, was not
worth the powder to blow him off the face of the earth. I felt tempted
to tell him so, but he was at all times so amiable and so chatty that I
really could not find the heart to mention a matter likely to interrupt
the flow of his good nature. The chances are that Mr. Krome
entertained much the same opinion of Uncle Si that Uncle Si had of Mr.
Krome. My somewhat intimate association with workingmen for the last
three months enables me to say that, so far as I have been able to
observe, workingmen often have a precious poor opinion of one another.
The plumbers talk of the carpenters as lazy and shiftless, the painters
speak ill of the plumbers, the carpenters regard the tinners with
derision, and so it goes through the whole category.

Now that I come to think of it, I am compelled to admit that this
practice of setting a low estimate upon the endeavors and
responsibilities of others is not restricted to the workingman's class.
I blush to recall how often I myself have envied the apparent ease with
which Belville Rock and Bobbett Doller stem the tide of human affairs
while I labor on and on, barely eking out a subsistence. So far as I
can see, they toil not, neither do they spin.

The chances are, on the other hand, that both Belville Rock and Colonel
Doller regard me as the luckiest of lazy dogs, who has