It was at this precise moment, when poor Mrs. Idiot was beginning to despair of getting any advice of value from her husband, that the telephone-bell rang, and the Idiot rose up to answer the call."Hello!" he said. "Oh! Hello, old man!" he added. "That you? Glad to see you." "Yes," he continued, after a pause. "Of course we expect you." "Seven o'clock sharp," he remarked, a moment later. "You'll surely be here?" Then after a second pause, he added: "Good! You can stay all night if you wish; we've plenty of room. Good-bye." "Who was it?" asked Mrs. Idiot, as the Idiot hung up the receiver of the telephone. "The Poet," replied the Idiot. "He wanted to know at what hour dinner was." "Oh, dear!" cried Mrs. Idiot. "Why didn't you tell him the dinner isn't for to-night, but tomorrow night?" "Didn't need to, my dear," said the Idiot, lighting a cigarette. "We've made a slight mistake. You invited these people, it now appears, for the twenty-ninth." "Certainly," said Mrs. Idiot. "Well, my love," said the Idiot, with an affectionate glance, "today is the--ah--the twenty-eighth." Mrs. Idiot drew a sigh of relief. "My!" she cried, "what a blessing! I wonder how I got so mixed!" "It's economy, perhaps," suggested the Idiot. "If you will insist on buying out-of-date diaries and last year's calendars at bargain-counters because they are cheap, I don't really see how you can expect to keep up with the times." Mrs. Idiot laughed heartily. Her relief of mind was unmistakable. "What would you have done, John, if this had really been the night?" she asked later. "Oh, I don't know," said the Idiot. "I think I should have taken you to New York to dinner, and bluffed our guests into believing they had come up on the wrong night. It is very easy for a host to put his guests in the wrong if he wants to. I don't, but if I must, I must." As it was, the family dinner that night was a great success in spite of the absence of the cook, because Mrs. Idiot, who is an expert with the chafing-dish, found several odds and ends in the late cook's domains, which, under her expert manipulation, became dishes which the Idiot said afterwards "remained long in the memory without proving too permanent a tax upon the digestion." VON THE MAINTENANCE OF AN ATTIC The Idiot had been laid up for a week. That is to say, he was too indisposed to attend to business at his office, and the family physician thought it would be a good idea if his patient would be content to remain quietly indoors for a little while. To this the Idiot cheerfully consented. "If there is one thing that I can do to perfection," he said, "it is resting. Some men are born leisurely, some achieve leisure, and some are discharged by their employers. I belong to the first two classes. I can never become one of the third class,
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