but to lie on
his back and look at sun, moon, and stars to earn both fame and
fortune. The farmer's candid conviction is that the city man is a
fellow who does nothing and gets rich at it; the urban resident is
quite as positive that the farmer habitually loafs around and lets God
do the rest. The truth of this whole matter is that all humanity is
prone to discontentment of that kind which not only denies happiness to
oneself but also begrudges others the happiness they achieve.

But of this frailty I shall speak no further; indeed, I do not
understand how I happened to be led into this line of discourse, for it
is quite at a tangent with the subject I had in mind--namely, the
butler's pantry.

XXII

THE BUTLER'S PANTRY

In the good old days, which were, of course, the days when you and I
were boys and girls together at Biddeford, Me., our civilization knew
nothing of that miserable invention which is now foisted upon the
modern house under the name of butler's pantry. In those good old days
we used to have pantries and china closets and butteries and all that
sort of thing, and people were contented.

At the present time, however, civilization is so curiously possessed of
a desire to ape the customs of European society that every kind of
innovation is seized upon with enthusiasm and without any apparent
regard for the derision and contempt to which it renders us liable. In
my opinion (which is sustained by such an eminent authority as Lawyer
Miles) the butler's pantry without the butler is as absurd a
contrivance as a carriage without a horse or a purse without gold or
silver to put therein. Yet there is not, I presume to say, a tenement
house in all this city that has not its butler's pantry; without this
adjunct no home is considered complete, and it makes no difference
whether "the lady of the house" does her own work or is able to employ
female servants, the butler's pantry is a sine qua non.

I told Alice that I regarded a butler's pantry much in the light of a
last year's bird's nest, and I added that since we were going to have a
butler's pantry minus the butler I supposed the next move would be in
the direction of a wine cellar minus the wine. But my humor is wholly
lost upon Alice; since she began training with other householders that
superior woman has exhibited a strange indifference to my suggestions
and counsel.

I mentioned Lawyer Miles a moment ago. This gives me the opportunity
o