Mark--quite dull. Strike, but hear! In a
word, then, I propose to exhibit two or three hundred of these dogs, in
some country where there are _no_ dogs. I would give them strange names,
put them in cages, and call them the 'American Menagerie of Trained
Animals.' A person who had never seen dogs, would suppose each one to be
a different species from the others--just as the lion, the tiger, and
the leopard are different, though all belonging to the one cat family.
Now, there is my idea. What do you think of it? Of course, you laugh,
at first."

Roars of laughter from the three bachelors had formed the chorus of
"Wesley Tiffles's closing sentences. Marcus Wilkeson, as became his age,
was the first to recover himself.

"The idea is a splendid one. None better. But there is one slight
difficulty in the way. Where are you to find your country that has no
dogs? If there were such a happy land on the face of this earth, Overtop
would have hunted it up long ago, and moved there."

Overtop laughingly replied, "That's so." He then informed Mr. Tiffles,
while admitting the theoretical excellence of his idea, that every
nation had its dogs as well as its fleas. Those two friends of man were
impartially distributed over the terrestrial globe. Overtop referred to
the standard Cyclopaedias, and several works on Natural History, in
proof of his assertion.

"Can't be! can't be!" retorted Wesley Tiffles, who was at first disposed
to defend his brilliant idea. But brilliant ideas were a common growth
of his fertile mind, and, like all things easily produced, he held them
cheaply. The moment that evidence, or the test of practice, showed them
to be fallacious, he gave them up, and drew upon his brain for others.
So, after a second's reflection, he added:

"Perhaps you are right. Dogs are not exactly in my line, after all. But
the idea, as an idea, was magnificent."

As Wesley Tiffles spoke, he repeated the act, for the twentieth time, of
throwing back his overcoat (a little seedy), and opening his vest, as if
to draw attention to his shirt front, whose natural whiteness was toned
down by a delicate neutral tint. Immediately afterward, he placed his
hand on a small breastpin in the centre of the shirt front, and turned
it to the right and left. It sparkled for the first time in the rays of
the fire, and revealed to the experienced eyes of the three bachelors
simultaneously, that Wesley Tiffles was the wearer of a real diamond.

"Ex