For Ingo to learn English will very easy be
    If someone is as kind to him as he has been to me;
    Plays games with him, reads fairy tales, corrects all his mistakes,
    And never laughs too loudly at the blunders that he makes—­
    Then he will find, as I did, how well two pleasures blend: 
    To learn a foreign language, and to make a foreign friend.

If I love anybody in the world, I love Ingo.  And that is why I cannot get up much enthusiasm for hymns of hate.

HOUSEBROKEN

After Simmons had been married two years he began to feel as though he needed a night off.  But he hesitated to mention the fact, for he knew his wife would feel hurt to think that he could dream of an evening spent elsewhere than in their cosy sitting room.  However, there were no two ways about it:  the old unregenerate male in Simmons yearned for something more exciting than the fireside armchair, the slippers and smoking jacket, and the quiet game of cards.  Visions of the old riotous evenings with the boys ran through his mind; a billiard table and the click of balls; the jolly conversation at the club, and glass after glass of that cold amber beer.  The large freedom of the city streets at night, the warm saloons on every corner, the barrooms with their pyramids of bottles flashing in the gaslight—­these were the things that made a man’s life amusing.  And here he was cooped up in a little cage in the suburbs like a tame cat!

Thoughts of this kind had agitated Simmons for a long time, and at last he said something to Ethel.  He had keyed himself up to meet a sharp retort, some sarcastic comment about his preferring a beer garden to his own home, even an outburst of tears.  But to his amazement Ethel took it quite calmly.

“Why, yes, of course, dear,” she said.  “It’ll do you good to have an evening with your friends.”

A little taken aback, he asked whether she would rather he didn’t go.

“Why, no,” she answered.  “I shall have a lovely time.  I won’t be lonely.”

This was on Monday.  Simmons planned to go out on Friday night, meeting the boys for dinner at the club, and after that they would spend the evening at Boelke’s bowling alley.  All the week he went about in a glow of anticipation.  At the office he spoke in an offhand way of the pleasant evenings a man can have in town, and pitied the prosaic beggars who never stir from the house at night.

On Friday evening he came home hurriedly, staying just long enough to shave and change his collar.  Ethel had on a pretty dress and seemed very cheerful.  A strange sinking came over him as he saw the familiar room shining with firelight and the shabby armchair.

“Would you rather I stayed at home?” he asked.

“Not a bit,” she said, quite as though she meant it.  “Diana has a steak in the oven, and I’ve got a new book to read.  I won’t wait up for you.”