urth, with a grand transformation showing the
conspirators in the county jail as a finale. Write it up with lots of
live-stock wandering in and out, bring in janitors and elevator-boys
and butchers, show up some of the humors of flat life, if there be any
such, call it _A Hole in the Flat_, and put it on the stage. Nine hundred
nights is the very shortest run it could have, which at fifty dollars a
night for the author is $45,000 in good hard dollars. Mr. Poet, the idea
is yours for a fiver. Say the word."

"Thanks," said the Poet, with a smile; "I'm not a dramatist."

"Then I'll have to do it myself," said the Idiot. "And if I do, good-bye
Shakespeare."

"That's so," said Mr. Pedagog. "Nothing could more effectually ruin the
dramatic art than to have you write a play. People, seeing your work,
would say, here, this will never do. The stage must be discouraged at all
costs. A hypocrite throws the ministry into disgrace, an ignoramus brings
shame upon education, and an unpopular lawyer gives the bar a bad name. I
think you are just the man to ruin Shakespeare."

"Then I'll give up my ambition to become a playwright and stick to
idiocy," said the Idiot. "But to come back to flats. Your feeling in
regard to them is entirely different from that of a friend of mine, who
has lived in one for ten years. He thinks flat life is ideal. His
children can't fall down-stairs, because there aren't any stairs to fall
down. His roof never leaks, because he hasn't any roof to leak; and when
he and his family want to go off anywhere, all he has to do is to lock
his front door and go. Burglars never climb into his front window,
because they are all eight flights up. Damp cellars don't trouble him,
because they are too far down to do him any injury, even if they
overflow. The cares of house-keeping are reduced to a minimum. His cook
doesn't spend all her time in the front area flirting with the postman,
because there isn't any front area to his flat; and in a social way his
wife is most delightfully situated, because most of her friends live in
the same building, and instead of having to hire a carriage to go calling
in, all she has to do is to take the elevator and go from one floor to
another. If he pines for a change of scene, he is high enough up in the
air to get it by looking out of his windows, over the tops of other
buildings, into the green fields to the north, or looking westward into
the State of New Jersey. Instead of taking