f their hearts they invited the three children who lived
opposite them on the same floor to practise on their piano, so that
from seven in the morning until nine at night we were treated to
five-finger exercises and scales. Their favourite diversion was a game
which consisted of the entire eight racing through their apartment,
jumping the nursery bed, and landing against the wall beyond. They had
hardwood floors and no rugs.

And the Angel must have quiet in which to write!

We discussed the situation, and resolved to take action. Move?
Certainly not! We had done our best in taking this apartment, and we
modestly felt that our best was not to be sneezed at. We would make
the other people move,--the impertinent people who had dared to produce
children off the premises, and then to introduce them ready-made in a
non-children apartment-house. Of course a landlord could not protect
himself against the home-grown article, so to speak, but he could
defend both himself and us against articles of foreign manufacture, and
so flagrantly, as evidenced by the names of these "made in Germany."

Other noises which stunned us were remediable by other means. For
example, the janitor of the apartment-house which stood next had a
pleasant little habit of three times a day emptying some dozen or more
metal garbage-cans in the stone-paved court, and as these with their
lids and handles merrily jingled back into place, a roar as if from a
boiler factory rose, reverberating between the high buildings until,
when it reached the sensitive ears of the Jardines, it created
pandemonium.

At such times the Angel used to look at me in dumb but helpless misery.
I tried bribing the janitor, but they changed so often I couldn't
afford it. Then, without a word to the Angel, I appealed to the Health
Department. I made a stirring plea. I set forth that not only our
health, but our lives (by which I meant our pocketbooks, because the
Angel could not write in a noise), were threatened, and I implored
protection.

An Irishman answered. God bless soft-hearted, pleasant-spoken
Irishmen! This one rescued us from a slow death by torture. He was
amenable to blarney. He got it. The result was that never again did
any of the serial of janitors, which ran continuously next door, empty
garbage-cans in the court.

Rendered jubilant by this victory, we confidently prepared to meet the
agents of our building. But before we could arrange this, Con