“We have,” he said, quickly, almost resignedly; “and they are ruining even Olympus itself.  Still, I made a stand.  Told Psyche she talked too much, and from that time on confided in her no more.”

“And how did she take it?” I asked.

“She declined to take it at all,” said Cupid, with a sigh.  “She demanded that I should tell her everything on penalty of losing her—­and I lost her.  She left me a little over a thousand years ago, and my mother for the same reason sent me adrift fifteen hundred or more years ago.  That is why I am eking out a living running an elevator,” he added, sadly.  “Still, I’m happy here.  I go up when I feel sad, and go down when I feel glad.  On the whole, I am as happy as any of the gods.”

“However, Dan,” I cried, sympathetically, slapping him on the back, “you have your official position, and that will keep you in—­ah—­well, you don’t seem to need ’em, but it would keep you in clothes if you could be persuaded to wear them.”

“No,” said the little elevator boy, sadly.  “I don’t want ’em in this climate—­nor are they necessary in any other.  All over the world, my dear fellow, true love is ever warm.”

There was a decided interval.  I felt sorry for the little lad who had been a god and who had become an elevator boy, so I said to him: 

“Never mind, Danny, you are sure of your office always.”

“I wish it were so,” said he, sadly.  “But really, sir, it isn’t.  You may think that love rules all things nowadays, but that is a fallacy.  Of late years a rival concern has sprung up.  I have found my office subjected to a most annoying competition which has attracted away from me a large number of my closest followers.  In the days when we acknowledged ourselves to be purely heathen, love was regarded with respect, but now all that is changed.  Opposite my office in the government building there is a matrimonial corporation doing a very large business, by which the fees of my position are greatly reduced.  Possibly after you have had your audience with Jove to-morrow you will take a turn about the city, in which event you will see this trust’s big brazen sign.  You can’t miss it if you walk along Mercury Avenue.  It reads: 

+----------------------------------+
|           Mammon & Co.           |
|           Matchmakers            |
|                                  |
|       fortunes guaranteed:        |
|         Happiness Extra          |
|                                  |
|               GEO. W. Mammon     |
|                      President   |
|                                  |
|               Horace greed       |
|                    Gen’l Manager |
|                                  |
|   Branch office                  |
| 67 Gehenna Ave., Hades           |
+----------------------------------+

“Dear me!” I cried.  “Poor Love!”