to smile, not
even paying that much for the sayings I appropriated.

No persons, places, times, or subjects were exempt from my plundering
in search of material. Even in church my demoralized fancy went
hunting among the solemn aisles and pillars for spoil.

Did the minister give out the long-meter doxology, at once I began:
"Doxology--sockdology--sockdolager--meter--meet her."

The sermon ran through my mental sieve, its precepts filtering
unheeded, could I but glean a suggestion of a pun or a _bon mot_. The
solemnest anthems of the choir were but an accompaniment to my thoughts
as I conceived new changes to ring upon the ancient comicalities
concerning the jealousies of soprano, tenor, and basso.

My own home became a hunting ground. My wife is a singularly feminine
creature, candid, sympathetic, and impulsive. Once her conversation
was my delight, and her ideas a source of unfailing pleasure. Now I
worked her. She was a gold mine of those amusing but lovable
inconsistencies that distinguish the female mind.

I began to market those pearls of unwisdom and humor that should have
enriched only the sacred precincts of home. With devilish cunning I
encouraged her to talk. Unsuspecting, she laid her heart bare. Upon
the cold, conspicuous, common, printed page I offered it to the public
gaze.

A literary Judas, I kissed her and betrayed her. For pieces of silver
I dressed her sweet confidences in the pantalettes and frills of folly
and made them dance in the market place.

Dear Louisa! Of nights I have bent over her cruel as a wolf above a
tender lamb, hearkening even to her soft words murmured in sleep,
hoping to catch an idea for my next day's grind. There is worse to
come.

God help me! Next my fangs were buried deep in the neck of the
fugitive sayings of my little children.

Guy and Viola were two bright fountains of childish, quaint thoughts
and speeches. I found a ready sale for this kind of humor, and was
furnishing a regular department in a magazine with "Funny Fancies of
Childhood." I began to stalk them as an Indian stalks the antelope. I
would hide behind sofas and doors, or crawl on my hands and knees among
the bushes in the yard to eavesdrop while they were at play. I had all
the qualities of a harpy except remorse.

Once, when I was barren of ideas, and my copy must leave in the next
mail, I covered myself in a pile of autumn leaves in the yard, where I
knew they intended to come to