e at my boots and gloves
and hosiery and tailoring. Then, doing up parcels and finding pieces of
string or envelopes or stamps--which Euphemia might very well manage for
me. Then, finding your way back after a quiet, thoughtful walk. Then,
having to get matches for your pipe. I sometimes dream of a better
world, where pipe, pouch, and matches all keep together instead of being
mutually negatory. But Euphemia is always putting everything into some
hiding-hole or other, which she calls its "place." Trivial things in
their way, you may say, yet each levying so much toll on my brain and
nervous system, and demanding incessant vigilance and activity. I
calculated once that I wasted a masterpiece upon these mountainous
little things about every three months of my life. Can I help thinking
of them, then, and asking why I suffer thus? And can I avoid seeing at
last how it is they hang together?

For there is still one other bother, a kind of _bother botherum_, to
tell of, though I hesitate at the telling. It brings this rabble herd of
worries into line and makes them formidable; it is, so to speak, the
Bother Commander-in-Chief. Well! Euphemia. I simply worship the ground
she treads upon, mind, but at the same time the truth is the truth.
Euphemia is a bother. She is a brave little woman, and helps me in
every conceivable way. But I wish she would not. It is so obviously all
her doing. She makes me get up of a morning--I would not stand as much
from anybody else--and keeps a sharp eye on my chin and collar. If it
were not for her I could sit about always with no collar or tie on in
that old jacket she gave to the tramp, and just smoke and grow a beard
and let all the bothers slide. I would never wash, never shave, never
answer any letters, never go to see any friends, never do any
work--except, perhaps, an insulting postcard to a publisher now and
again. I would just sit about.

Sometimes I think this may be peculiar in me. At other times I fancy I
am giving voice to the secret feeling of every member of my sex. I
suspect, then, that we would all do as the noble savage does, take our
things off and lie about comfortable, if only someone had the courage to
begin. It is these women--all love and reverence to Euphemia
notwithstanding--who make us work and bother us with Things. They keep
us decent, and remind us we have a position to support. And really,
after all, this is not my original discovery! There is the third chapter
of