r the sitting-room table. There were a
number of books on it, to be sure. I glanced rapidly through the piles,
fingered the lower books, pushed aside a magazine, and pulled out from
beneath it the book I wanted. I returned to the hammock and handed it
over. Then, after possessing myself, again rather ostentatiously, of
material, cotton, needle, scissors, and thimble, I sat down.

"It's the second essay I specially thought we'd like," I said.

"Just for curiosity," said Jonathan, with an impersonal air, "where did
you find it?"

"Find what?" I asked innocently.

"The book."

"Oh! On the table."

"Which table?"

"The one with the lamp on it."

"I should like to know where."

"Why--just there--on the table. There was an 'Atlantic' on top of it, to be
sure."

"I saw the 'Atlantic.' Blest if it looked as though it had anything under
it! Besides, I was looking for it on top of things. You said you laid it
down there just before luncheon, and I didn't think it could have crawled
in under so quick."

"When you're looking for a thing," I said, "you mustn't think, you must
look. Now go ahead and read."

If this were a single instance, or even if it were one of many
illustrating a common human frailty, it would hardly be worth setting
down. But the frailty under consideration has come to seem to me rather
particularly masculine. Are not all the Jonathans in the world continually
being sent to some sitting-room table for something, and coming back to
assert, with more or less pleasantness, according to their temperament,
that it is not there? The incident, then, is not isolated; it is typical
of a vast group. For Jonathan, read Everyman; for the red book, read any
particular thing that you want Him to bring; for the sitting-room table,
read the place where you know it is and Everyman says it isn't.

This, at least, is my thesis. It is not, however, unchallenged. Jonathan
has challenged it when, from time to time, as occasion offered, I have
lightly sketched it out for him. Sometimes he argues that my instances are
really isolated cases and that their evidence is not cumulative, at others
he takes refuge in a _tu quoque_--in itself a confession of weakness--and
alludes darkly to "top shelves" and "bottom drawers." But let us have no
mysteries. These phrases, considered as arguments, have their origin in
certain incidents which, that all the evidence may be in, I will here set
down.

Once upon a time I asked Jonath