ll salary, and he thought his daughter
could do better."

"She couldn't find a better fellow, Mr. Idiot," said Mrs. Pedagog, and
Mr. Pedagog rose to the occasion by nodding his entire acquiescence in
the statement.

"Thank you very much," said the Idiot. "That was precisely what I told
Mr. Barlow, and I suggested a scheme to him by which his sole objection
could be got around."

"You would start in business for yourself?" said Mr. Whitechoker.

"In a sense, yes," said the Idiot. "Only the way I put it was that a good
confidential clerk would make a good partner for him, and he, after
thinking it over, thought I was right."

"It certainly was a characteristically novel way out of the dilemma,"
said Mr. Brief, with a smile.

"I thought so myself, and so did he, so it was all arranged. On the 1st
of next month I enter the firm, and on the 15th I am--ah--to be married."

The company warmly congratulated the Idiot upon his good-fortune, and he
shortly left the room, more overcome by their felicitations than he had
been by their arguments in the past.

The few days left passed quickly by, and there came a breakfast at Mrs.
Pedagog's house that was a mixture of joy and sadness--joy for his
happiness, sadness that that table should know the Idiot no more.

Among the wedding-gifts was a handsomely bound series of volumes,
including a cyclopaedia, a dictionary, and a little tome of poems, the
first output of the Poet. These came together, with a card inscribed,
"From your Friends of the Breakfast Table," of whom the Idiot said, when
Mrs. Idiot asked for information:

"They, my dear, next to yourself and my parents, are the dearest friends
I ever had. We must have them up to breakfast some morning."

"Breakfast?" queried Mrs. Idiot.

"Yes, my dear," he replied, simply. "I should be afraid to meet them at
any other meal. I am always at my best at breakfast, and they--well, they
never are."

THE END

* * * * *

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica.

Mr. Bangs is probably the generator of more hearty, healthful, purely
good-humored laughs than any other half-dozen men of our country
to-day.--_Interior_, Chicago.

The Idiot.

"The Idiot," continues to be as amusing and as triumphantly bright in the
volume called after his name as in "Coffee and Repartee."--_Evangelist_,
N. Y.

The Water Ghost, and Others.

The funny side of the ghost genre is b