silken tights.
"Adonis, at your service. What can I do for you?"

"Well, I declare!" I cried, lost now in admiration of the way the gods
were ordering things on Olympus. "So they've made you a valet, have
they?"

"Yes," replied Adonis. "I hold office for the six months that I am
here. You know that I am a resident of Olympus only half the time. The
balance I live in Hades."

"It's a common custom," said I. "Even with us, our swellest people go
south for the winter."

"Hum--yes," said Adonis, somewhat confused. "It's very good of you to
draw that parallel. Your construction of the situation does credit to
your sense of what is polite, sir. Unfortunately for me, however, my
position is more like that of the habitual criminal who is sent to the
penitentiary periodically. I have to go, whether I want to or not."

"Still, it must be a pleasant variation," I observed, forgetting that
it is bad form to converse with a servant, and remembering only that I
was addressing an old flame of Madame Venus. "Hades isn't a bad place
for a little while, I should fancy."

"True," sighed Adonis. "But the society there is very mixed. It's full
of self-made immortals, whereas we are all immortals by birth."

"And who, pray," I queried, "takes your place while you are below?"

"Narcissus," he replied; "but there's generally a lot of complaint
about him. He takes more pains dressing himself than he does in
looking after guests, the result of which is that after my departure
things get topsy-turvy, and by the time I get back, with the exception
of Narcissus, there isn't a well-dressed god in all Olympus."

"I wonder, where such perfection is possible," said I, "that they
tolerate that."

"They're not going to very much longer," said Adonis, and then he
laughed. "Narcissus queered himself last season at the palace. Jove
sent for him to trim his beard, and he nearly cut one of the old man's
ears off. Investigation showed that instead of keeping his eye on what
he was doing, he was looking at himself in the glass all the time.
Jupiter in his anger hurled a thunderbolt at him, but, fortunately for
Narcissus, he hurled it at the mirrored and not at the real Narcissus,
and he escaped. The result is the rumor that he will be made
head-waiter in the dining-room instead of valet next season, in which
event I shall probably be allowed to remain here all through the year,
or else they'll put Jason on."

"And which would you prefer?" I asked.