ar be it! I got the idea out
of the comic supplement. But it works all right, and the beauty of it is
that you can use the nail over and over again. It is practically
indestructible.

"So you see if you are wearing the nail all day, to lectures and so on,
and if you have to put on your glad rags at night to go see a girl, or
anything like that, and find a button missing, you simply remove the
nail from your day-pants and attach it to your night ones. Same
suspenders--same nail. It beats the bachelor's friend all to pieces."

"I should imagine so," laughed Andy. "I'll have to lay in a stock of
those nails myself. The way tailors sew buttons on trousers nowadays is
a scandal. They don't last a week."

"There's one trouble, though," went on Dunk, and he carefully examined
his simple suspender attachment as if in fear of losing it. "With the
increasing number of autos, and the decrease in horses, there is bound
to be a corresponding decrease in horseshoe nails. That's a principle of
economics which I am going to bring to the attention of Professor
Shandy. He likes to lecture on such cute little topics as that. He might
call it 'Bachelor's future depends on the ratio of increase of
automobiles.'"

"I see!" exclaimed Andy with a chuckle. "Just as Darwin, or one of those
evolutionists proved that the clover crop depended on old maids."

"How do you make that out?" asked Dunk.

"I guess you've forgotten your evolution. Don't you remember? Darwin
found that certain kinds of clover depended for growth and fertilization
on humble bees, which alone can spread the pollen. Humble bees can't
exist in a region where there are many field mice, for the mice eat the
honey, nests and even the humble bees themselves.

"Now, of course you know that the more cats there are in a neighborhood
the less field mice there are, so if you find a place where cats are
plentiful you'll find plenty of humble bees which aren't killed off by
the mice, since the mice are killed off by the cats. So Darwin proved
that the clover crop, in a certain section, was in direct proportion to
the number of cats."

"But what about old maids?"

"Oh, I believe it was Huxley who went Darwin one better, come to think
of it. Huxley said it was well known that the more old maids there were
the more cats there were. So in a district well supplied with old maids
there'd be plenty of cats, and in consequence plenty of clover."

"Say, are you crazy, or am I?" asked D