k was not to be sneezed at,
while twenty-one dollars for the season was simply a gross
extravagance. I was in favor of recalling and annulling our contract
with Mr. Devoe, but Alice insisted that we should keep strictly in line
with the other neighbors, doing nothing likely to stigmatize us either
as mean or as unfashionable.

A day or two after this incident a ruffianly looking fellow called on
us to "make arrangements," as he said, about hauling away our garbage
when we got moved into our new house. I told the fellow that the city
sent a garbage wagon around every week to remove the garbage free of
cost. To this the fellow replied that the city did its work
carelessly, that the wagon was invariably overloaded, and that no
reliance could be placed upon the garbage boxes being emptied if that
responsible duty were intrusted to the city employes.

The fellow seemed to know what he was talking about, and his
representations were so fair that finally I agreed to pay him
twenty-five cents a week for hauling the garbage away. That evening I
heard from Mr. Baylor that the scheme was a vulgar bit of blackmail;
that the fellow was driver for one of the city wagons and made a
practice of extorting fees from householders for doing work which he
was already paid to do. I felt grievously outraged and I threatened to
report this infamy to the municipal authorities. But Mr. Baylor and
other friends assured me that these infamous practices of blackmail
were encouraged at the City Hall, and that I would simply be laughed at
if I ventured to complain.

It was about this time, too, that I paid a man four dollars to clean
out the catch basin in the rear of our premises. The man told me that
the catch basin was "reeking with the germs of disease." I did n't see
how that could well be, since the sewer had not been laid six weeks.
However, the man insisted, and he talked so portentously of bacteria
and bacilli and morbiferous microbes that finally in a terror of
apprehension I gave him four dollars and bade him do his saving work
and do it quickly.

When the neighbors heard of this incident they unanimously pronounced
me a fool, accompanying that opprobrious stigmatization with an epithet
which my religious convictions prohibit me from recording.

XXIII

ALICE'S NIGHT WATCHMAN

From what I have already told you it is likely that you have gathered
that Alice and I had good reason to conclude that being a householder
wa