t way, he proceeded
to discourage us in every sort of ingenious fashion which lay at his
command. Verily, friends are invaluable in domestic crises!

Nevertheless, his gloomy prophecies disturbed us. We tried to make
light of our fears--to pooh-pooh them--to pretend a scorn for Jimmie's
opinions, which in secret we were far from feeling, for the fact
remained that the Jimmies were experienced and we were not. "Living in
an apartment," Jimmie had declared, "is like driving. You may have
perfect control over your own horse, but you have constantly to fear
the bad driving of other people."

These words kept ringing in our ears. We never forgot for a moment
that there were people under us. We crept in gently if a supper after
the theatre kept us out until two in the morning. We never allowed the
piano to be played after ten in the evening nor before breakfast. We
gave up the loved society of our dog, and boarded him in the country
because dogs, cats, and parrots were not allowed.

But day by day we found that each one of these self-inflicted maxims
was being violated by all the other residents. Singing popular songs,
a pianola, half a dozen fox terriers, laughing and shouting good nights
in the corridors kept us awake half the night, and worst of all, what
we patiently submitted to as visitors with children, we, to our horror,
discovered were residents with children, and children of the most
detested sort at that. Five of these hyenas in human form lived below
us. Their parents were of the easy-going sort. They had all come from
a plantation in Virginia, and they had brought their plantation manners
with them.

Now, ordinary children are bad enough, and even well-trained ones at
that, in the matter of noise, but the noises made by the Gottlieb
children were something too appalling to be called by the plain,
ordinary word. They had never learned to close a door. They slammed
it, and every cup and saucer on our floor danced in reply. When their
mother wanted them, she never thought of going to the room they were in
to speak to them. She sat still and called. They yelled back defiant
negatives or whining questions, and then the negro nurse was sent, and
she hauled them in by one arm, their legs dragging rebelliously on the
floor and their other arm clutching wildly at pillars or furniture to
delay their reluctant progress.

They had a piano, and all five of them took piano lessons. Out of the
kindness o