"But it is not that which is awful. It is the presuming to vie with
these `spirits elect;' to say to them, 'Make way,--I too claim place
with the chosen. I too would confer with the living, centuries after
the death that consumes my dust. I too--' Ah, Pisistratus! I wish
Uncle Jack had been at Jericho before he had brought me up to London and
placed me in the midst of those rulers of the world!"

I was busy, while my father spoke, in making some pendent shelves for
these "spirits elect;" for my mother, always provident where my father's
comforts were concerned, had foreseen the necessity of some such
accommodation in a hired lodging-house, and had not only carefully
brought up to town my little box of tools, but gone out herself that
morning to buy the raw materials. Checking the plane in its progress
over the smooth deal, "My dear father," said I, "if at the Philhellenic
Institute I had looked with as much awe as you do on the big fellows
that had gone before me, I should have stayed, to all eternity, the lag
of the Infant Division."

"Pisistratus, you are as great an agitator as your namesake," cried my
father, smiling. "And so, a fig for the big fellows!"

And now my mother entered in her pretty evening cap, all smiles and good
humor, having just arranged a room for Uncle Roland, concluded
advantageous negotiations with the laundress, held high council with
Mrs. Primmins on the best mode of defeating the extortions of London
tradesmen, and, pleased with herself and all the world, she kissed my
father's forehead as it bent over his notes, and came to the tea-table,
which only waited its presiding deity. My Uncle Roland, with his usual
gallantry, started up, kettle in hand (our own urn--for we had one--not
being yet unpacked), and having performed with soldier-like method the