f the Colonel, they had established themselves, once
more echoed to the voices of little children.

In those days, if anyone among his acquaintances had been asked to point
out an individual as prosperous and happy as, under the most favoured
circumstances, it is given to a mortal to be, he would unhesitatingly
have named Morris Monk.

What was there lacking to this man? He had lineage that in his own
neighbourhood gave him standing better than that of many an upstart
baronet or knight, and with it health and wealth. He had a wife who was
acknowledged universally to be one of the most beautiful, charming, and
witty women in the county, whose devotion to himself was so marked and
open that it became a public jest; who had, moreover, presented him with
healthy and promising offspring. In addition to all these good things
he had suddenly become in his own line one of the most famous persons
in the world, so that, wherever civilized man was to be found, there
his name was known as "Monk, who invented that marvellous machine, the
aerophone." Lastly, there was no more need for him, as for most of
us, to stagger down his road beneath a never lessening burden of daily
labour. His work was done; a great conception completed after half a
score of years of toil and experiment had crowned it with unquestionable
success. Now he could sit at ease and watch the struggles of others less
fortunate.

There are, however, few men on the right side of sixty whose souls grow
healthier in idleness. Although nature often recoils from it, man was
made to work, and he who will not work calls down upon himself some
curse, visible or invisible, as he who works, although the toil seem
wasted, wakes up one day to find the arid wilderness where he wanders
strown with a manna of blessing. This should be the prayer of all of
understanding, that whatever else it may please Heaven to take away,
there may be left to them the power and the will to work, through
disappointment, through rebuffs, through utter failure even, still to
work. Many things for which they are or are not wholly responsible are
counted to men as sins. Surely, however, few will press more heavily
upon the beam of the balance, when at length we are commanded to unfold
the talents which we have been given and earned, than those fateful
words: "Lord, mine lies buried in its napkin," or worse still: "Lord, I
have spent mine on the idle pleasures which my body loved."

Therefore it