ed to guard the place!"

"He 's the tramp!" insisted the carpenter. "He 's the very tramp who
broke into the barn and slept there once before. I 've caught him now
and I won't let him go!"

The prisoner protested that the carpenter was mistaken, that he was,
indeed, the night watchman, and that he was entitled to "the kind
lady's protection."

The fellow's voice sounded familiar and I recognized his form and face.
Yes, there could be no mistake; I had seen and dealt with this person
before.

"My friends," said I, addressing Alice and her carpenter and the crowd
of neighbors that had assembled, "you are right, and yet you are wrong.
I know this man, and I identify him as the base ingrate who stole my
new wheelbarrow and my garden utensils. Your name, sir," I continued,
sternly, transfixing the quaking wretch with a glance of commingled
anger and scorn, "your name is Percival Wax!"

XXIV

DRIVEWAYS AND WALL-PAPERS

Had we been so disposed we could have given the wretched Percival Wax a
great deal of trouble. Lawyer Miles was anxious to prosecute the
fellow, and I dare say he felt that he had missed the greatest
opportunity of his life when Alice and I concluded to let the matter
drop. We were moved to this decision by the consideration that, while
we owed Percival Wax only our resentment and vengeance, a prosecution
of him for his numerous misdemeanors would put us to no end of trouble.
The exposure and punishment of vice would doubtless prove much more
popular among the virtuous, did not these proceedings involve so great
an expenditure both of time and of labor. Alice and I were not long in
making up our minds that we had plenty of other unavoidable troubles to
engage our attention; so we let the tramp go, but not, however, until I
had lectured him seriously upon the propriety of his abandoning his
evil ways and until Alice had given him a clean shirt and an old pair
of shoes with which to start out afresh upon the pathway of reform,
which he solemnly promised to follow.

If you have ever passed the old Schmittheimer place--and doubtless you
have, for it is the pride and ornament of a most aristocratic
section--you must have noticed the roadway that leads from the street
to the residence that looms up majestically two hundred feet back from
the street. Perhaps you have wondered why grounds in other respects so
attractive should be defaced by a feature so unsightly and so
impracticable as this ide