piece of it without charge. Meanwhile, if Mrs. Pedagog will kindly let me have my bill for last week, I'll be obliged."

"It won't be ready until to-morrow, Mr. Idiot," said the landlady, in surprise.

"I'm sorry," said the Idiot, rising. "My scribbling-paper has run out. I wanted to put in this morning writing a poem on the back of it."

"A poem? What about?" said Mr. Pedagog, with an irritating chuckle.

"It was to be a triolet on Omniscience," said the Idiot. "And, strange to say, sir, you were to be the hero, if by any possibility I could squeeze you into a French form."

IV
The Incorporation of the Idiot

"How is business these days, Mr. Idiot?" asked the Poet, as the one addressed laid down the morning paper with a careworn expression on his face. "Good, I hope?"

"Fair, only," replied the Idiot. "My honored employer was quite blue about things yesterday, and if I hadn't staved him off I think he'd have proposed swapping places with me. He has said quite often of late that I had the best of it, because all I had to earn was my salary, whereas he had to earn my salary and his own living besides. I offered to give him ten per cent. of my salary for ten per cent. of his living, but he said he guessed he wouldn't, adding that I seemed to be as great an Idiot as ever."

"I fancy he was right there," said Mr. Pedagog. "I should really like to know how a man of your peculiar mental construction can be of the slightest practical value to a banker. I ask the question in all kindness, too, meaning to cast no reflections whatever upon either you or your employer. You are a roaring success in your own line, which is all any one could ask of you."

"There's hominy for you, as the darky said to the hotel guest," returned the Idiot. "Any person who says that discord exists at this table doesn't know what he is talking about. Even the oil and the vinegar mix in the caster—that is, I judge they do from the oleaginous appearance of the vinegar. But I am very useful to my employer, Mr. Pedagog. He says frequently that he wouldn't know what not to do if it were not for me."

"Aren't you losing control of your tongue?" queried the Bibliomaniac, looking at the Idiot in wonderment. "Don't you mean that he says he wouldn't know what to do if it were not for you?"

"No, I don't," said the Idiot. "I never lose control of my tongue. I meant exactly what I said. Mr. Barlow told me, in so many words, that if it were not for me he wouldn't know what not to do. He calls me his Back Action Patent Reversible Counsellor. If he is puzzled over an intricate point he sends for me and says: 'Such and such a thing being the case, Mr. Idiot, what would you do? Don't think about it, but tell me on impulse. Your thoughtless opinions are worth more to me than I can tell you.' So I tell him on impulse just what I should do, whereupon he does the other thing, and comes out ahead in nine cases out of ten."

"And you confess it, eh?" said the Doctor, with a curve on his lip.

"I certainly do," said the Idiot. "The world must take me for what I am. I'm not going to be one thing for myself, and build up a fictitious Idiot for the world. The world calls you men of pretence conceited, whereas, by pretending to be something that you are not, you give to the world what I should call convincing evidence that you are not at all conceited, but rather somewhat ashamed of what you know yourselves to be. Now, I rather believe in conceit—real honest pride in yourself as you know yourself to be. I am an Idiot, and it is my ambition to be a perfect Idiot. If I had been born a jackass, I should have endeavored to be a perfect jackass."

"You'd have found it easy," said Mr. Pedagog, dryly.

"Would I?" said the Idiot. "I'll have to take your word for it, sir, for I have never been a jackass, and so cannot form an opinion on the subject."

"Pride goeth before a fall," said Mr. Whitechoker, seeing a chance to work in a moral reflection.

"Exactly," said the Idiot. "Wherefore I admire pride. It is a danger-signal that enables man to avoid the fall. If Adam had had any pride he'd never have fallen—but speaking about my controlling my tongue, it is not entirely out of the range of possibilities that I shall lose control of myself."

"I expected that, sooner or later," said the Doctor. "Is it to be Bloomingdale or a private mad-house you are going to?"

"Neither," replied the Idiot, calmly. "I shall stay here. For, as the poet says,