rse characters?"
asked Mr. Brief before the Idiot had a chance to reply to the
Bibliomaniac's question.

"I try to be a widely diverse character myself."

"And, trying to sit on many stools, fall and become just an Idiot," said
Mr. Pedagog.

"That's according to the way you look at it. I put my company to the test
in the crucible of my mind. I analyze the characters of all about me, and
whatever quality predominates in the precipitate, that I become. Thus in
the presence of my employer and his office-boy I become a mixture of
both--something of the employer, something of an office-boy. I run
errands for my employer, and boss the office-boy. With you gentlemen I
go through the same process. The Bibliomaniac, the School-Master, Mr.
Brief, and the rest of you have been cast into the crucible, and I have
tried to approximate the result."

"And are an Idiot," said the School-Master.

"It is your own name for me, gentlemen," returned the Idiot. "I presume
you have recognized your composite self, and have chosen the title
accordingly."

* * * * *

"You were a little hard on me this morning, weren't you?" asked the
genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed, that evening, when he and
the Idiot were discussing the morning's chat. "I didn't like to say
anything about it, but I don't think you ought to have thrown me into the
crucible with the rest."

"I wish you had spoken," said the Idiot, warmly. "It would have given me
a chance to say that the grain of sense that once or twice a year leavens
the lump of my idiocy is directly due to the ingredient furnished by
yourself. Here's to you, old man. If you and I lived alone together, what
a wise man I should be!"

And then the genial old gentleman went to the cupboard and got out a
bottle of port-wine that he had been preserving in cobwebs for ten years.
This he opened, and as he did so he said, "I've been keeping this for
years, my boy. It was dedicated in my youth to the thirst of the first
man who truly appreciated me. Take it all."

"I'll divide with you," returned the Idiot, with a smile. "For really,
old fellow, I think you--ah--I think you appreciate yourself as much as
I do."

XII

"I wonder what it costs to run a flat?" said the Idiot, stirring his
coffee with the salt-spoon--a proceeding which seemed to indicate that he
was thinking of something else.

"Don't you keep an expense account?" asked the Bibliomaniac, sl