nd. Mr. Krome thereupon volunteered to do our painting
by the square yard, instead of by the square foot (as is the customary
proceeding); he admitted, with a candor rarely met with in his
profession, he could as well afford to do our house in white carriage
paint by the square yard as other rival painters could afford to do it
in common white lead by the square foot. I assured Mr. Krome of my
determination to spare no pains to cooeperate with him in every honest
and ambitious endeavor at Mr. Rock's expense.

So now, the widow Schmittheimer having vacated the premises, the work
of rehabilitation began in earnest. Men with wheelbarrows and spades
and picks made their appearance and started in to demolish walls and to
excavate sand at a marvelous rate. Presently a cavernous space yawned
where it was proposed to locate the cellar where the steam-heating
apparatus was to stand. The sand taken from this spot was harrowed out
and dumped in a pile over the horse-radish bed in the back yard.

This was the first piece of vandalism I noticed, and I protested
against it. Not long thereafter I discovered that the workmen engaged
at battering down the partitions in the upper part of the house were
piling up the refuse scantling and laths on the currant and gooseberry
bushes in the side yard. I protested again, and so I kept on
protesting, for hardly a day passed that I did not detect the workmen
about that house at some piece of lawlessness jeoparding the cherry
trees, or the lilac bushes, or the tulips, or the roses, or the
peonies, or the asparagus bed.

Cui bono--to what good? With as much effect might the wild man of
Borneo rail at Capella because her silvery, twinkling light is
seventy-one years in reaching this distant planet.

I am unalterably opposed to the wanton destruction of life. Moreover,
it seems to me that the trees, the shrubbery, the vines and the flowers
on the Schmittheimer place have certain rights which the invaders ought
to respect. At any rate, I spent the better part of two days
transplanting a number of the currant and gooseberry bushes, and
although I had a stiff neck and a very lame back for a considerable
time thereafter I felt more than compensated therefor by the conviction
that I had saved the lives of friends who would duly give me practical
proof of their gratitude.

There were certain acts of lawlessness that I could neither prevent nor
repair. One grieved me particularly. The plum