The day was over at last.  Wearily Jarley dragged himself down the stairs and reckoned up the day’s losses.  In glass and bric-a-brac destroyed he was some twenty or thirty dollars out.  In mayonnaise dressing lost at dinner through the untoward act of the football he was out one pleasurable sensation to his palate, and Jarley was one of those, to whom, that is a loss of an irreparable nature.  In bodily estate he was practically a bankrupt.  Had he bicycled all morning and played golf all the afternoon he could not have been half so weary.  Had he been thrown from a horse flat upon an asphalt pavement he could not have been half so bruised; all of which Mrs. Jarley considerately noted, and with an effort recovered her amiability for her husband’s sake, so that after eight o’clock, at which hour Jack retired to bed, a little rest was obtainable, and Jarley’s equanimity was slowly restored.

“Well,” said Mrs. Jarley, as they went up-stairs at eleven, “it hasn’t been a very peaceful day, has it, dear?”

“Oh, that all depends on how you spell peace.  If you spell it p-i-e-c-e, it’s been full of pieces,” returned Jarley, with a smile; “but I say, my dear, I want to modify my statement last night that I had nothing to be thankful for.  I have discovered one great blessing.”

“What’s that—­a football?” queried Mrs. Jarley.

“Not by ten thousand long shots!” cried Jarley.  “No, indeed.  It’s this:  I’m more thankful than I can express that Jack is not twins.  If he had been, you’d have been a widow this evening.”

HARRY AND MAUDE AND I—­ALSO JAMES

We both loved Maude deeply, and Maude loved us.  We know that, because Maude told us so.  She told Harry so one Sunday evening on the way home from church, and she told me so the following Saturday afternoon on the way to the matinee.

This was the cause of the dispute Harry and I had in the club corner that Saturday night.  Harry and I are confidants, and neither of us has secrets that the other does not share, and so, of course, Maude’s feeling towards each of us was fully revealed.

We did not quarrel over it, for Harry and I never quarrel.  I want to quarrel, but it is a peculiar thing about me that I always want to quarrel with men named Harry, but never can quite do it.  Harry is a name which, per se, arouses my ire, but which carries with it also the soothing qualities which dispel irritation.

This is a point for the philosopher, I think.  Why is it that we cannot quarrel with some men bearing certain names, while with far better men bearing other names we are always at swords’ points?  Who ever quarrelled with a man who had so endeared himself to the world, for instance, that the world spoke of him as Jack, or Bob, or Willie?  And who has not quarrelled with Georges and Ebenezers and Horaces ad lib., and been glad to have had the chance?