n
objected to the wart on the other man's nose--and there are men to whom a
wart is a Pelion of rank offense, and who believe themselves
heaven-appointed to cut it off. It may be for worldly gain. It may be
merely for amusement. There is nothing so outrageous, so grotesque, which,
if the human brain has conceived it, the human hand has not done. Many a
man has taken a cab, on a sudden shower, merely to avoid the trouble of
unrolling his umbrella, and the sanest of women has been known to cheat a
'bus conductor of a penny, so as to wallow in the gratification of a
crossing-sweeper's blessing. When the philosopher asks the Everlasting Why,
he knows, if he be a sound philosopher--and a sound philosopher is he who
is not led into the grievous error of taking his philosophy seriously--that
the question is but the starting point of the entertaining game of
Speculation.

To this effect spake the Literary Man from London, when next he met Zora.
Nunsmere was in a swarm of excitement and the alien bee had, perforce, to
buzz with the rest.

"The interesting thing is," said he, "that the thing has happened. That
while the inhabitants of this smug village kept one dull eye on the
decalogue and another on their neighbors, Romance on its rosy pinions was
hovering over it. Two people have gone the right old way of man and maid.
They have defied the paralyzing conventions of the engagement. Oh! the
unutterable, humiliating, deadening period! When each young person has to
pass the inspection of the other's relations. When simpering friends
maddeningly leave them alone in drawing-rooms and conservatories so that
they can hold each other's hands. When they are on probation _coram
publico_. Our friends have defied all this. They have defied the orange
blossoms, the rice, the wedding presents, the unpleasant public affidavits,
the whole indecent paraphernalia of an orthodox wedding--the bridal veil--a
survival from the barbaric days when a woman was bought and paid for and a
man didn't know what he had got until he had married her and taken her
home--the senseless new clothes which brand them immodestly wherever they
go. Two people have had the courage to avoid all this, to treat marriage as
if it really concerned themselves and not Tom, Dick, and Harry. They've
done it. Why, doesn't matter. All honor to them."

He waved his stick in the air--they had met on the common--and the lame
donkey, who had strayed companionably near them, took to