peacefully at the house of Mrs. Brooks.

It was the serpent's fourth visit that season, and he explained
to inquiring friends that his former employer had sold the
business, and that the new management, while reorganizing, had
determined to enlarge the premises, the three clerks who had been
retained having two weeks' vacation with half pay.

It is extraordinary how frequently "wise serpents" are retained
by the management on half, or even full, salary, while the
services of the "harmless doves" are dispensed with, and they are
set free to flutter where they will.



THE SERPENT

Rose Wiley had the brightest eyes in Edgewood. It was impossible
to look at her without realizing that her physical sight was
perfect. What mysterious species of blindness is it that
descends, now and then, upon human creatures, and renders them
incapable of judgment or discrimination?

Claude Merrill was a glove salesman in a Boston fancy-goods
store. The calling itself is undoubtedly respectable, and it is
quite conceivable that a man can sell gloves and still be a man;
but Claude Merrill was a manikin. He inhabited a very narrow
space behind a very short counter, but to him it seemed the earth
and the fullness thereof.