“You can finish it then surely within a week.”

“Within a week?  I sh’d think likely,”—­the last remark backed up by such a smile as made further question impossible.

Once more we pursued our investigating tour, saying to the prompt proprietor of the centrifugal-stove store, “Is that new furnace that is to make June of January, that never does what it ought not to do or leaves undone what ought to be done, that asks a mere handful of coal every twenty-four hours and runs itself, ready for its trial trip?”

“It is, sir.”

“Registers all set and—­”

“Well, no; the registers can’t be set till everything else is out of the way.”

“Ah, yes, of course; but ’t won’t take long to do that?”

“They shall all be set in the twinkling of an eye, at a moment’s notice.”

And now it only remained to hie away to the painter.  So we hied and hailed him.

“Tell us, O man of many hues! how much time will you need to paint and stain and grizzle and grain and tint and stripe and fill and shellac and oil and rub and scrub and cut and draw and putty and sand-paper and size and distemper and border and otherwise exalt and glorify the walls and woodwork of our house, after the other workmen are through, making allowance for what you have already done and will be able to do while they are still at work?”

“I tell you what it is, Mr. Architect, it shall be done just as soon as possible.  The fact is, we’ve got the heft of it done now.  We shall follow the carpenters up sharp, and get through almost as soon as they do.”

Outwardly serene, but smiling triumphantly within, we went to our daily roast-beef, and in the sweet simplicity of a blissful ignorance and a clear conscience assured our patient hostess that the dog-days and her unworthy guests should go out together.  Yet we never told a lie or wilfully deceived any man, much less a woman.

But we anticipate.  At the close of the third day we essayed to examine progress at the new house.  As we approached, a dim and doubtful but wondrous pleasant anticipation took possession of our fancy.  What if it should, indeed, be finished!  The carpenter had suggested three or four days,—­three had already passed.  The painter was to get through almost as soon, the plumber would surely be out of the way, and there would be only the furnace registers.  It was, perhaps, too good to be true, and we lingered to give the notion time to grow.  Opening the door at last, we received something the same shock the traveller feels when he encounters a guide-post telling him the next town is half a mile farther on than it was three miles back.  But we’ve not lived forty years without learning to bury our “might-have-beens” with outward composure, whatever the internal commotion.  We remembered there was still a week, and resolved to keep a sharp lookout that no time was wasted; an idle resolution, for the workmen were as anxious to get through as