Whitechoker.

"Do? There'd be so much for it to do that the members could hardly find time to rest," returned the Idiot. "Do? Why, my dear sir, take this house, for instance, and see what it could do here. What a boon it would be for me if some kind-hearted person would come here once a week and sew buttons on my clothes, darn my socks—in short, keep me mended. What better work for one who desires to make the world brighter, happier, and less sinful!"

"I fail to see how the world would be brighter, happier, or less sinful if your suspender-buttons were kept firm, and your stockings darned, and your wardrobe generally mended," said Mr. Pedagog. "I grant that such a guild would be doing a noble work if it would take you in hand and correct many of your impressions, revise your well-known facts so as to bring them more in accord with indubitable truths, and impart to your customs some of that polish which you so earnestly strive for in your dress."

"Thank you," said the Idiot, suavely. "But I don't wish to overburden the kind ladies to whom I refer. If my costumes could be looked after I might find time to look after my customs, and, I assure you, Mr. Pedagog, if at any time you will undertake to deliver a course of lectures on Etiquette, I will gladly subscribe for two orchestra-chairs and endeavor to occupy both of them. At any rate, to return to the main point, I claim that the world would be happier and brighter and less sinful if the domestic heathen were kept mended by such a guild, and I challenge any one here to deny, even on so slight a basis as the loose suspender-button, the truth of what I say. When I arise in the morning and find a button gone, do I make genial remarks about the joys of life? I do not. I use words. Sometimes one word, which need not be repeated here. I am unhappy, and, being unhappy, the world seems dark and dreary, and in speaking impatiently, though very much to the point, as I do, I am guilty of an offence that is sinful. With such a start in the morning, I come here to the table. Mr. Pedagog sees that I am not quite myself. He asks me if I am not feeling well, an irritating question at any time, but particularly so to a man with a suspender-button gone. I retort. He re-retorts, until our converse is warmer than the coffee, and our relations colder than the waffles. Finally I leave the house, slamming the door behind me, structurally weakening the house, and go to business, where I wreak my vengeance upon the second clerk, who takes it out of the office-boy, who goes home and vents his wrath on his little sister, who, goaded into recklessness, teases the baby until he yells and gets 

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