eamed of a dinky little
house like this--dreamed and ached for it there in Manila--on blistering
hikes, on wibbly-wabbly gunboats--knee-deep in sprouting rice--I've
dreamed of a house in New York like this! slopping through the steaming
paddy-fields, sweating up the heights, floundering through smelly hemp,
squatting by green fires at night! always, always I've longed for a
home of my own. Now I've got it, and I'm the happiest man on Manhattan
Island!"

"O Lord!" said Selwyn, staring, "if you feel that way! You never said
anything about it--"

"Neither did you, Phil; but I bet you want one, too. Come now; don't
you?"

"Yes, I do," nodded Selwyn; "but I can't afford one yet"--his face
darkened--"not for a while; but," and his features cleared, "I'm
delighted, old fellow, that _you_ have one. This certainly is a jolly
little kennel--you can fix it up in splendid shape--rugs and mahogany
and what-nots and ding-dongs--and a couple of tabby cats and a good
dog--"

"Isn't it fascinating!" cried Boots. "Phil, all this real estate is
mine! And the idea makes me silly-headed. I've been sitting on this pile
of rugs pretending that I'm in the midst of vast and expensive
improvements and alterations; and estimating the cost of them has
frightened me half to death. I tell you I never had such fun, Phil. Come
on; we'll start at the cellar--there is some coal and wood and some
wonderful cobwebs down there--and then we'll take in the back yard; I
mean to have no end of a garden out there, and real clothes-dryers and
some wistaria and sparrows--just like real back yards. I want to hear
cats make harrowing music on my own back fence; I want to see a tidy
laundress pinning up intimate and indescribable garments on my own
clothes-lines; I want to have maddening trouble with plumbers and
roofers; I want to--"

"Come on, then, for Heaven's sake!" said Selwyn, laughing; and the two
men, arm in arm, began a minute tour of the house.

"Isn't it a corker! Isn't it fine!" repeated Lansing every few minutes.
"I wouldn't exchange it for any mansion on Fifth Avenue!"

"You'd be a fool to," agreed Selwyn gravely.

"Certainly I would. Anyway, prices are going up like rockets in this
section--not that I'd think of selling out at any price--but it's
comfortable to know it. Why, a real-estate man told me--Hello! What was
that? Something fell somewhere!"

"A section of the bath-room ceiling, I think," said Selwyn; "we mustn't
step too heavily