The Genial Idiot

h-Class Home for Single Gentlemen, stopping behind the Idiot's chair a

is the exact status also of the potatoes. My principles are such that I cannot permit a non-union housemaid to help me to a scab potato, whereas, if y

eply was

ant matter. As for the potatoes, we will eat them not exactly under protest, but with a distinctly announced proviso in advance that we assume that they h

wed potatoes, and Mary fled to the kitchen, where she informed the pres

t the unions, now,

manded Bridget, with

dn't even drink milk from

said Bridget. "Oi'll make

to reflect seriously upon the Idiot's

ly all the trouble there is at the pr

that as well as I do. Even Adam and Eve, untutored children of nature though they were, saw it right off, and organized a union on the spot, which has in the course of centuries proven the most beneficent institution of th

; but, truly, Mr. Idiot, I wish you wouldn't put notions into Mary's head about the other kind. I should be sorry if she were to join that ho

sherry. Now suppose that highly cultivated inebriate had belonged to a self-respecting union? You wouldn't have had to discharge her at all. A telephone message to the union headquarters, despatched while the lady was indulging in one of her tantrums, would have brought an inspector to the house, the queen would have been caught with the goods on, and her card would have been taken from her, so that by the mere automatic operation of the rules of her own organization she could no longer work for you. Thus you would have been spared some highly seasoned language which I

the union would do?" querie

with her at all under a properly equipped union. Upon the discovery of her delinquencies you would merely have to send for the union inspector, lift up the rug and show her the various vintages of sweepings the maid has left there: November ashes; December match-ends; threads, needles, and pins left over from the February meeting of the Ibsen Sewing-Circle at your house; your missing tortoise-shell hair-pin that you hadn't laid eyes on since September; the grocer's bill for October that you told the grocer you ne

ook in the domestic lottery-a good woman, but a regular scorcher. Where does your inspector co

ons of the burned food in a sealed package and send it to the Committee on Culinary Improvement for their inspection. A better method which time would probably bring into practice would be for the union itself to establish a system of domiciliary visits, by which the cook's work should be subjected to a

e Doctor. "You are

"Why shouldn't I? What's the use of

ief. "There never was any such unio

at, Mr. Brief," said the Idiot-"you, who belong to the neare

d the Lawyer. "Me?

t least you told me yo

Mr. Brief, angrily. "When did I ever

bout it, too-said that no institution in existence had done more to uplift the moral tone of the legal professi

f. "I recall telling at dinner on Fr

y sought after by the brainiest laborers in the field of Coke and Blackstone; its stern, relentless eye is fixed upon the evil-doer, and it is an effective instrument for reform not only in its own profession, but in the State as well. What

ace the bar and domestic service on

. Twenty people need housemaids, where one requires a lawye

laugh. "Intellectual qualifications, I

there are more housemaids earning a living to-day than lawyers-and, besid

ested to know what further you can sa

lly, Mr. Brief," asked the Idiot, "really now, did you ever h

ffee the wrong way, and in the effort to bring him to, the thread of the argumen