e sits down the man in the flat below kicks because we
move the piano so often.

Tacks was also present.

Tacks is my youthful brother-in-law with a mind like a walking
delegate because he's always looking for trouble and when he finds
it he passes it up to somebody who doesn't need it.

"Evening, John!" gurgled Uncle Peter; "late, aren't you?"

"Cars blocked, delayed me," I sighed.

"New York will be a nice place when they get it finished, won't
it?" chirped Tacks.

Just then Aunt Martha squeezed in from a shopping excursion and I
went out in the hall while she counted up and dragged out the day's
spoils for Clara J. to look at.

Aunt Martha is Uncle Peter's wife only she weighs more and breathes
oftener.

When the two of them visit our bird cage at the same time the
janitor has to go out and stand in front of the building with a
view to catching it if it falls.

That night I waded into all the sporting papers and burned dream
pipes till the smoke made me dizzy.

The next day I hit the track with three sure-fires and a couple of
perhapses.

There was nothing to it. All I had to do was to keep my nerve and
not get side-tracked and I'd have enough coin to make Andrew
Carnegie's check book look like a punched meal ticket.

I played them--and when the Angelus was ringing Moses O'Brien and
three other Bookbinders were out buying meal tickets with my money.

Things went along this way for about a week and I was all to the
bad.

One evening Clara J. said to me, "John, I looked through your check
book to-day and I've had a cold on my chest ever since. At first I
thought I had opened the refrigerator by mistake."

At last the blow had fallen!

I had promised her faithfully before we were married that I'd never
play the ponies again and I fell and broke my word.

The accident was painful, and I'd be a sad scamp to put her wise at
this late day, especially after being fried to a finish.

I simply didn't dare confess that my money had gone into a fund to
furnish a home for Incurable Bookmakers--what to do? What to do?

She had me lashed to the mast.

"May I inquire," my wife continued with the breath of winter in her
tones, "why it's all going out and nothing coming in? Have you
begun so soon to lead a double life?"

Mother, call your baby boy back home! If Uncle Peter would only
drop in, or Tacks or Aunt Martha or even the janitor!

Suddenly it occurred to me:

"Dearie," I said, "you have surpr