"But, oh, my glorious life of loafing," came the instant answer. "The
hours with the stars and the flowers, under the green trees with the
whisperings of breezes in the grass. My books, my thinkers and their
thoughts. Beauty, music, all the solaces of all the arts. What? When I
fade into the dark I shall have well lived and received my wage for
living. But these twenty-acre work-animals of two-legged men of yours!
Daylight till dark, toil and moil, sweat on the shirts on the backs of
them that dries only to crust, meat and bread in their bellies, roofs
that don't leak, a brood of youngsters to live after them, to live the
same beast-lives of toil, to fill their bellies with the same meat and
bread, to scratch their backs with the same sweaty shirts, and to go
into the dark knowing only meat and bread, and, mayhap, a bit of jam."

"But somebody must do the work that enables you to loaf," Mr. Wombold
spoke up indignantly.

"'Tis true, 'tis sad 'tis true," Terrence replied lugubriously. Then
his face beamed. "And I thank the good Lord for it, for the work-
beasties that drag and drive the plows up and down the fields, for the
bat-eyed miner-beasties that dig the coal and gold, for all the stupid
peasant-beasties that keep my hands soft, and give power to fine
fellows like Dick there, who smiles on me and shares the loot with me,
and buys the latest books for me, and gives me a place at his board
that is plenished by the two-legged work-beasties, and a place at his
fire that is builded by the same beasties, and a shack and a bed in
the jungle under the madroño trees where never work intrudes its
monstrous head."

Evan Graham was slow in getting ready for bed that night. He was
unwontedly stirred both by the Big House and by the Little Lady who