t women make a practice of
riding up and down Clarendon Avenue in pants!"

"Certainly, I do," said Mr. Robbins. "We do things in style over this
way. Evanston Avenue is a century behind the times. Oh, you 'll learn
a lot of things when you get moved over here into your new house."

"But I 'll not stand it!" I cried. "I 'll inform the police and I 'll
have the law on these brazen creatures. What would Alice say! And
what would become of Fanny and of little Josephine if they were brought
up under the demoralizing influences of spectacles like that! Do you
suppose I 'm going to have Galileo and Herschel corrupted? And little
Erasmus--shall his pure, innocent mind be contaminated? Never,
neighbor Robbins, never!"

But Mr. Robbins did not seem to view the matter at all as I did. It
was evident that his long connection with the circus had calloused the
sensibility of his perceptive faculties. He was inclined to jeer at
what he termed my prudishness. I was glad to be back in Evanston
Avenue once more, secure in an atmosphere of propriety. It was several
hours, however, before I could get my mind away from thoughts of that
woman in pants, so profoundly had her appearance in that strangely
abbreviated costume shocked me.

XVII

OUR DEVICES FOR ECONOMIZING

Unless you want to render yourself liable to an attack of nervous
prostration you should never watch a skilful workman nailing on lath.
It is the most bewildering spectacle you can conceive of. I watched it
for twenty minutes one day--it was when they were lathing the big front
room downstairs, the library, and my brain began to reel as if I were
intoxicated. I actually believe that if Uncle Si had not led me away
and set me down under one of the willow-trees in the front yard I
should have had a spell of sickness, and may be even now had been
confined in the incurable ward of a lunatic asylum. I can't understand
how they do it so accurately and so fast and with such apparent ease.
The whole proceeding is so fascinating that I really believe that, next
to proficiency in the science of astronomy, I should like to be an
expert at nailing lath. In every line of mechanics my education has
been grievously neglected.

Alice says that I am not practical enough to make a successful
carpenter; she gets this unfair opinion of me from an incident in our
early wedded life which she delights in recalling in the presence of
people upon whom I am particularly