s by no means as cheap an enjoyment as could be conceived of. We
recalled the words of the sagacious and prudent Mr. Denslow. "When you
get a place of your own," said that wise man, "you will find that there
will be a thousand annoying little demands for your money where now
there is one." Our other friend, Mr. Black, had expressed the same
idea when he told us that "a house-owner never gets through paying
out." If Alice and I had had any thought upon the matter at all it was
to the effect that when we had a home of our own we got rid forever of
the monstrous bugaboo of house-rent at sixty dollars a month. We
supposed that all our spare time could be devoted to counting the money
we were going to save by getting out of a grasping, avaricious
landlord's clutches. Experience is a severe teacher; Alice and I have
found out a great many things since we began to have direct dealings
with builders, masons, plumbers, painters et id omne genus, as well as
with sprinklers, day laborers, landscape gardeners, fruit-tree
peddlers, lightning-rod agents, and others of that ilk.

We duly became aware that we were losing a good deal at the hands of
nocturnal depredators. Our flower beds were despoiled with amazing
regularity; the broken lath and old lumber which had been piled up in
the back yard, and which Alice intended to use eventually for kindling,
disappeared mysteriously, and the carpenters reported finding evidences
every morning that some person or persons had been tramping through the
house the night before.

We were all at once possessed of the paralyzing fear that this
nocturnal trespasser, or these nocturnal trespassers, might set our
house on fire. The floors were strewn with shavings; a spark would
precipitate a conflagration, and the old Schmittheimer place would burn
like so much tinder. I read over the fire-insurance policies which we
had taken out with our genial friends, Doller, Jeems, and Teddy, and I
found out that the companies represented by those gentlemen were not
responsible for losses upon unoccupied premises, or for losses
resulting from incendiarism. It occurred to me that it would be wise
to invite the police to keep an eye on the place at night, but this
plan seemed impracticable for the reason that I wanted to keep the
lawn-sprinklers running all night in defiance of the ordinance, and
this could not be done if the police were to be mousing about the
premises.

While I was still worrying ov