The Genial Idiot

hat interesting but rare individual by Gladys Waterbury Shrivelton of the Woman's Page of the Squehaw

locked up?" demanded Mr. Pedagog, who, somehow or ot

e Ideal Husband just as I do about a beautiful peachblow vase which is too fragile, too delicate to be brought into contact with the ordinary earthen-ware of society. The earthen-ware isn't harmed by bumping into the peachblow, but the peachblow will inevitably turn up with a crack here and a nick there and a hole somewhere else after such an encounter. If I were a woman and sudde

ed Mr. Brief. "Has the recipe for such

ear old landlady fixed her eyes firmly and affectionately upon her spouse, the sch

Mr. Pedagog, "and-er-a frac

. Eyes, blue; disposition when vexed, vexatious; disposition when pleased, happy; irritable from just cause; considerate a

ut a true friend when ne

d Mr. Pedagog, ple

ceed in both,"

er a fifteen years' experience with you, I for one can say that I have found you always the true friend when I needed you-I never told how, without

edagog, severely, "d

you know, and you were so r

n," said Mrs. Pedagog, "and then I should

d perhaps-well, only perhaps, my love-you might not have thought of

thful, too," said the landlady

ty-four, and I should hate to think that if I should happen to get married within the next two or three years my wife would have

and that is why we have always found her the sweetest of landladies, but because Mrs. Pedagog prefers Mr. Pedagog in this race for supremacy in the domain of a woman's heart is no reason why you who are only bald-headed in your temper, like most of us, should not prove to be equally the ideal of some other woman-in fact, of several others. Women are not all alike. As a matter

," correcte

or less do not really count. Lots of men who are really only forty-two behave like sixty, and I know

ibliomaniac. "You have been twenty-fou

ifteen years, and if I have succeeded, so much the better for me. It's a beautiful age. You feel that you know so much when you're twenty-four. If it sho

for instance?" d

depend upon the color of the eyes, so long as they are neither green nor red. Nobody could

kind of a man you are, eh

ion after habit firmly intrenched in her character; with an ambition to shine all summer at Newport, all autumn at Lenox, all winter at New York, with a dash to England and France in the merry, merry springtime? Do you suppose our friend John Pedagog here would be in it with Tommie Goldilocks Van Varick as the Ideal Husband of such a woman? Not on your life. Well, then, take Tommie Goldilocks Van Varick, who'd be the Ideal Spouse of this brilliant social light Mrs. Van Varick. How would he suit Mrs. Pedagog, rising at eleven-thirty every day and yelling like mad for the little blue bottle which clears the h

ed, I don't see where his ideal qualities come in, anyhow, Mr. Idiot. I think y

can possibly want; provides her with an opera-box, and never fails, when he himself goes to the opera, to call upon her and pay his respects like a gentleman. If she sustains heavy losses at bridge, he makes them good, and when she gives a dinner to her set, or to some distinguished social lion from other zoos, Van Varick is always on hand to do the honors of his

og. "If they never see each other, what

with the influence and affluence of the Van Varick name. This as plain little Miss Floyd Poselthwaite she was unable to do. She has now an assured position, and is protected against the chan

maniac. "And what does the Wi

ter in every society column in the country. His freedom he enjoys, just as she enjoys hers. If he doesn't turn up for six weeks she never asks any questi

n come in? That's what I can'

th Mrs. Van Varick on the tapis, Tommie is safe from

hty poor ideal!"

suit a daughter of the British nobility any more than the Duke of Lacklands would make a good husband for dusky little Minnehaha. So I say what's the use of discussing the matter any furth

th a smile, "your advice t

I were you. There's no telling when some one will com

d. I don't suppose you can give me a hint as

n't believe even Edison could tell you ab