"Are you ever bothered much by burglars off here in the country?" asked Mr. Pedagog one spring afternoon, as he and the Idiot and the youngsters strolled about the Idiot's small farm.

"No," said the Idiot. "They've only visited me twice."

"Only twice, eh?" observed the Schoolmaster. "Well, I should think that was often enough, considering that you haven't lived here more than a year and a half."

"It was," said the Idiot. "I didn't say I wanted them to come again, did I?"

"Of course not," returned Mr. Pedagog. "But you said 'only twice,' as if two visits of that nature were less than might have been expected."

"Well, aren't they?" asked the Idiot. "Just make a little calculation. I've lived on this place precisely five hundred and ninety-four days, and, of course, an equal number of nights. It seems to me that in breaking into my house only twice when they might have come every night shows a degree of restraint upon our Suburban Burglary Company that is worthy of the highest commendation. You, of course, refer to professional burglars, don't you?"

Mr. Pedagog laughed. "Are there any amateur burglars?"

"Are there!" ejaculated the Idiot. "Well, rather. There is the Gasman, and man who inspects the water-meter, and the Iceman, and the Plumber. If you refer to that class, why, I have them with me always."

"Which of the two classes do you prefer?" asked Mr. Pedagog, with a chuckle.

"Well, I'm not quite sure as to that," returned the Idiot. "I've often wondered myself whether I preferred the straight-out honest pirate, who does his work surreptitiously by night, and who doesn't pretend to be anything but a pirate, or the sleek, insinuating chap, who comes into our house by day, and runs up a bill against you which in his heart of hearts he knows is not a proper one. There are burglars and burglars in this world, Mr. Pedagog, and the one who lands in the penitentiary is not always a bigger rascal than the fellow who holds the respect of the community and sets himself up as a prominent citizen. Highwaymen may be divided into classes, some of them respectable, others not. There was Dick Turpin, who ran honest risks to obtain a living; there are men in Wall Street who work greater ruin, and are held in higher esteem. There is the footpad who takes your watch, and pawns it to buy bread for his starving family, and there is the very charming young person who sits behind a table at a church fair, and charges you seven dollars for a fifty-cent sofa-cushion. So it goes. Socially I prefer the esteemed citizen who makes me pay twenty-eight dollars for ten dollars' worth of gas; but when it comes down to a strict business basis I must say I have lost less money through the operations of the professional thief than through those of the amateur highwayman. Take a recent case in my own experience, for instance. Only last week I sent anonymously a small clock which cost me twenty dollars to a guild fair here in town, and Mrs. Idiot bought it for a birthday present for me for forty dollars. In other words, I have a twenty-dollar clock on my hands that has cost me sixty dollars."

"But you have the satisfaction of knowing that you have contributed to the good work of the guild," suggested Mr. Pedagog.

"That is true enough," said the Idiot; "but the guild is only forty dollars to the good. They'd have been better off if I had given them fifty dollars in cash, and I'd have saved ten."

"But you have the clock," insisted Mr. Pedagog.

"I certainly have," replied the Idiot; "and if time is money I shall soon be rich, for that clock makes time to beat the band. If it keeps on as it has started and we stand by it, we shall soon be about a month ahead of the sun. It gains a week every forty-eight hours. If that clock were truthful, I should be a centenarian at forty."

"But you're not sorry you gave it?" said Mr. Pedagog, deprecatingly.

"Not at all," said the Idiot. "My only regret is that Mrs. I. bought it. But," he added, hastily, "she needn't know that."

"I won't say a word," said Mr. Pedagog.

"I won't, neither, pa," said Tommy, with a degree of complacency which showed that the temptation to tell was great.

"Well, I won't say mor'n two or three words about it, anyhow," put in Mollie, not anxious to commit herself to perpetual silence on the subject.

"It is the most beautiful clock I ever saw," said the Idiot, quickly, realizing the possibilities of Mollie's two or three words.

"That's what I fink," said Mollie, "and I'm goin' to tell mamma that you said so."

"All right," said the Idiot. "Suppose you and Tommy run right up and tell her now."

"I'd rather hear you talk, pa," said Tommy.

"He does take after you, doesn't he?" said Mr. Pedagog.

"Yes," said the Idiot, "he does. He likes to hear me talk as much as I do, bless him!"

"It is a commendable sign in a son," observed Mr. Pedagog. "But tell about the two professionals. Did they get anything?"

"They did," said the Idiot. "And at the same time I lost nothing. The first chap came on the scene, along about two o'clock in the morning. He was a very industrious mechanic, and I regret to say he was not adequately paid for his services. He tackled the safe." At this point the Idiot threw back his head and laughed heartily.

"I have seen the safe," said Mr. Pedagog, "and to tell you the truth, my dear Idiot, I have wondered at your choosing so obvious a receptacle for your valuables. It does not, to my mind, deny itself as a safe should. It advertises the fact that your silver, your wife's jewels perhaps, are within. I have spoken once or twice to our friend Mr. Brief about it."

"No doubt," replied the Idiot. "However, I can't see why a safe has any disadvantages."

"It lies in this," said Mr. Pedagog, impressively. "You confess at once to the burglar the exact location of the things he's after. Without a safe your silver, or Mrs. Idiot's jewels, such as they are, might be found anywhere in the house. But when you take the trouble to buy a safe, any burglar in creation who has ordinary common-sense must know that your valuables are concentrated in that one spot."

"That, I rejoice to say," said the Idiot, "is the burglar's view."

"You should not rejoice," said Mr. Pedagog, with some of his old-time severity. "You make his work so comparatively easy that he is content to follow a base profession, as you have termed it. Truly, I wonder at you. You place on your first floor a bald safe – "

"I haven't seen any advertised as having a full head of hair," observed the Idiot, complacently.

"You misunderstand me," said Mr. Pedagog. "When I say bald I mean evident, plain, obvious. You practically say: Here are the things which I value. What is to be found within this safe, Mr. Burglar, are the very things you are after. Therefore, say you to the burglar: Attack this safe. Break it open, rifle it of its contents; in other words, here is the swag, as I believe it is called."

"You are wholly right," said the Idiot. "I bought that safe for that precise reason, and I bought a big one and a strong one. But you don't know the story of that safe, do you, Mr. Pedagog?"

"I do not," said the Schoolmaster.

"Then let me tell you," said the Idiot. "That safe has been broken open, and by a professional burglar. The burglar had his tools, and he had his expert knowledge of their use. He arrived at my house, as I recall the situation, somewhere about – ah – two o'clock at night. He bored at the lock until three. He fooled about the combination. He did everything that a respectable burglar might be expected to do, and – "

"He failed, of course, since you say you have lost nothing," said Mr. Pedagog.

"Not at all," said the Idiot. "After two hours and fifty-five minutes' work on that safe he got it open. And – "

"And?" queried Mr. Pedagog.

"He found it empty," said the Idiot; "absolutely empty. There was not a spoon, a fork, a tea-pot, or a diamond necklace, or even a scrap of paper in it."

"Then why do you have it," said Mr. Pedagog.

"Merely to keep the burglar busy while he is in my house, and to make him expert in honest work. An ordinary mechanic, intelligent enough to get that safe open by night or by day, would be entitled to at least two dollars for his services. The individual involved got it open; and when he opened it – "

"Found nothing!" cried Mr. Pedagog.

"Exactly," said the Idiot, pulling away on his cigar. "I suppose I should have left a check inside payable to bearer for a dollar and a half to compensate him for his trouble, but I am so neglectful that I really didn't."

"And you bought a safe – "

"Merely to provide employment for the unemployed burglar," said the Idiot. "That is all a safe is good for, Mr. Pedagog. Experience has shown that the house-safe isn't worth the paint it is covered with in the matter of protection. But as a decoy it works to a charm. A safe, in other words, is a splendid thing to keep things out of, as well as to keep the burglar busy while he is your guest. If our particular visitor had not spent all his time breaking the safe open he might have been able to locate our spoons."

"It is a pity," said Mr. Pedagog, dryly, "that you did not add to the impression the futility of his work made upon his mind a short note of admonition indicating to him that he might be in better business."

"My dear Mr. Pedagog," said the Idiot, "that would have been rude. Invited or otherwise, the man was a guest in my house, and a note of that kind would have savored of sarcasm, or, if not, would have placed me in the position of having taken advantage of my guest's weakness to be facetious at his expense."

"You take an original view of it," said Mr. Pedagog.

"Not a bit of it," returned the Idiot. "I got the idea from a Boston girl. Once when she and her sister-in-law found themselves alone at night in a huge country-house they were suddenly overcome with fear of burglars, and rather than run any personal risk from the midnight marauder they left a big card on top of the safe inscribed with these words: 'Dear Sir, – The combination of this safe is 11-16-91. There is nothing in it. If you must have our silver, call at the Shawmut Safe Deposit Company, where it is now stored.' The two girls were cousins of mine."

The Schoolmaster smiled again. "There must be a streak of your particular kind of genius running all through your family," said he.

"True – there is," said the Idiot. "I'm not the only Idiot in my tribe."

"And the second burglar. How about him?" asked Mr. Pedagog.

"Oh, he was easy," said the Idiot. "I compromised with him. You see, I met him on his way out. I was coming home late, and just as I arrived he was leaving. I invited him back, lit the gas in the dining-room, and asked him to join me in a bit of cold tongue and a bottle of beer. He tried to shuffle out of it, but when I said I preferred to reason with him rather than have him arrested he sat down, and we talked the situation over. I discovered that for about three hundred dollars' worth of my stuff that he had in a bag slung over his shoulder he might get as much as fifty dollars, and at great risk. I showed him how foolish that was, and offered to give him forty dollars if he'd leave the stuff, so saving me two hundred and sixty dollars, and avoiding all trouble for himself. He didn't like it at first, but under the genial influence of the beer and the cold tongue and my conversation he finally yielded, and walked out of my house with a check drawn to bearer for forty dollars in his pocket."

"I am astonished at you!" cried Mr. Pedagog. "You compounded a felony."

"Not exactly," said the Idiot. "I should have done so if I hadn't stopped payment on the check the next day."

"Oh," said Mr. Pedagog, "I see!"

"All I lost was the revenue-stamp on the check," said the Idiot.

"And did you ever hear from the man again?"

"Yes," observed the Idiot. "I met him on the train a day or two later – sat next to him in the smoking-car, in fact."

"And did he know you?"

"Yes. We had a very pleasant chat going to town. He said he was moving away from here. He couldn't stand it, he said. He was going to work in some new field where a man could get living pay for his work. Said he'd been robbed by some of our best people; what's the use of working for nothing? he asked. The poor man was kept down, and all that sort of talk."

"And you parted friends?"

"Yes," said the Idiot. "I felt rather sorry for him, and when he said good-bye I gave him a cigar and a five-dollar bill, and that was the end of him. I have since received a letter from him in which he said that my kindness was appreciated, and that I could leave my valuables out on the lawn all night hereafter with perfect impunity. 'There isn't a thief in our whole suburban gang would be mean enough to touch it after your kindness to me,' he wrote."

"Extraordinary!" said Mr. Pedagog.

"Very," said the Idiot. "Nevertheless, I have not taken his hint about leaving my silver out-of-doors, and have worked as hard as ever on my patent burglar-alarm."

"Oh, indeed! Have you a new idea in that line?" asked the Schoolmaster.

"Yes," said the Idiot. "It is wholly novel. It is designed to alarm the burglar, and not scare the people in the house. Did you ever hear of anything like that before?"

"Never!" ejaculated Mr. Pedagog, with enthusiasm. "How is it to work?"

"That," said the Idiot, "is what I am trying to find out. When I do I'll let you know, Doctor."

XVI
CONCLUSION

Mr. and Mrs. Idiot

Request the Pleasure of Your Company

at Dinner

On Thursday Evening, May 31, 1900

At Half-after Seven O'Clock

R.S.V.P. Last Call

Handsomely engraved, a card bearing the above inscription was sent about the middle of May to all the Idiot's old friends of Mrs. Smithers-Pedagog's select home for gentlemen, and it is needless to say that they all accepted.

"I wonder what the dickens he means by 'Last Call,'" said Mr. Brief to the Genial Old Gentleman who occasionally imbibed. "Sounds like the warning of the dining-car porter on a Pullman train."

"I'm sure I can't imagine," said the other; "and what's more, I'm content to wait and find out. Of course you are going?"

"I am, indeed," said Mr. Brief. "I'd travel farther than that for the pleasure of an hour with the dear old boy, and particularly now that he has so good a cook. Dined there lately?"

"Yes," said the Genial Old Gentleman.

"Had any of those mulled sardines he gives you Sunday nights?"

"More than was good for me. Ain't they fine?" said the Genial Old Gentleman, smacking his lips ecstatically.

"Immense!" said Mr. Brief. "A cook that can mull sardines like that is worth her weight in gold. Where do you suppose he got her?"

"Why, he married her!" cried the Genial Old Gentleman, promptly. "Mrs. Idiot cooks those herself, on the chafing-dish. Didn't you know that?"

"No," said Mr. Brief. "I happened in late Sunday night, and we had 'em. They were so awfully good I didn't do a thing but eat, and forgot to ask who cooked 'em."

"It's the way of the world," sighed the Genial Old Gentleman. "We old bachelors have to get along on what comes to us, but the energetic chap who goes out into the world and marries the right sort of a woman – Jove, what a lucky chap he is!"

"There's some truth in that," agreed Mr. Brief; "but, on the whole, just think what a terrible thing it would be to marry a bad cook, and to have to eat everything she prepared with an outward show of delight just to keep peace in the family."

"That's your cautious lawyer's view of it," said the Genial Old Gentleman.

"Why the deuce don't you get married yourself, then," said Mr. Brief. "If you feel that way – "

"I don't want to," said the Genial Old Gentleman. "Fact is, Brief, old man, all I should ever marry for would be the comfort of a home, and I can always get that by going up to the Idiot's."

The other invited guests were no less perplexed by the final words of the Idiot's invitation, and with the pleasure of accepting was mingled an agreeable curiosity to know what was meant by "Last Call." The evening came, and all were present. It was a goodly company, and by special favor the children were allowed to sit up and partake; and, what was more, Mary, the housemaid of the old days, assisted in the serving of the dinner.

"Seems like old times," said Mr. Whitechoker, beaming at Mrs. Pedagog and smiling pleasantly at Mary. "I shall almost expect our host to be sarcastic."

"Sarcasm, Mr. Whitechoker," said the Idiot, unfolding his napkin, "is all right in its place, but as I have grown older I haven't found that having given rein to it I was happier afterwards. Sometimes, no doubt, Mrs. Pedagog has thought me rude – "

"Never!" said the ancient landlady.

"Well, there's something worse than having others think you rude," said the Idiot. "That's realizing yourself that you have been so, and I hope Mrs. Pedagog will accept here and now an apology – a blanket apology – which shall cover a multitude of past sins."

"My dear Idiot," said Mrs. Pedagog, "do you know how I have always thought of you?"

"As a son," said Mr. Pedagog. "And I have felt towards you as a father."

"I wonder you didn't give me a thrashing once in a while, then," said the Idiot.

"We have often wished to," observed Mr. Pedagog.

"John!" cried Mrs. Pedagog.

"Well, I have," said Mr. Pedagog. "Mrs. Pedagog has all the amiable weakness of a woman towards her naughty boy. Spank him next time, not this."

Everybody laughed, and the Idiot rose from his place and walked to Mrs. Pedagog's side and kissed her.

"You're a nice old mommie," he said, "and the naughty boy loves you. He'll be hanged if he'll kiss his daddy, though!" he added, with a glance at Mr. Pedagog.

"I will," said Mollie; and she did so.

The old Schoolmaster returned the little girl's salute with emphasis.

"Bless you, little one!" he said, huskily. "I love you even as I loved your papa."

"I'm a-goin' to kiss everybody," said Tommy; and he started in with Mary and put his little scheme through to the bitter end. "What are we going to have for dessert?" he added, complacently, as he resumed his seat.

"Idiot," said Mr. Brief, when the third course had been served, "what do you mean by 'Last Call?'"

"We are going to give up housekeeping," said the Idiot.

"No trouble, I hope," said Mr. Whitechoker.

"Lots!" ejaculated the Idiot. "But not very troublesome troubles. The fact is we intend to travel."

"To travel, eh?" said the Genial Old Gentleman. "Where?"

"Abroad," replied the Idiot. "We have never been abroad, you know. I've been abroad, and Mrs. Idiot has been abroad, but we have never been abroad. We are going together this time, and we are going to take the children, and for a year we propose to see Europe under the most favorable conditions. I think that abroad will seem a little different if we go together."

"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Whitechoker. "But London is a cold, godless place."

"It is if you go alone," said the Idiot.

"And Paris is vile," suggested Mr. Brief.

"To the man who has only himself to think of," said the Idiot.

"And Italy is dirty," said the Bibliomaniac.

"There's water in Venice," observed the Idiot. "Not very clean water, to be sure, but wet enough to wash the edges of the sidewalks."

"And travel is uncomfortable," observed the Poet.

"Admitted," said the Idiot. "Travel is about the hardest work and the worst-paid work I know of, but we cannot help ourselves. Now that we are rich we must accept the penalties imposed by modern society upon the wealthy. You never knew a rich man to lead a comfortable life, did you, Mr. Pedagog?"

"There are few of them who seem to know how," admitted the Schoolmaster. "But – you do."

"No doubt," said the Idiot. "But you see I do not wish to be ostentatiously different from my kind, so having made a fortune I am going to live as people of fortune do and be as uncomfortable as I know how."

"I don't understand about this fortune," said Mr. Brief. "Have you run up against a rich uncle somewhere, or is this sudden wealth the result of your inventions, concerning which we have heard so much lately?"

"Neither," replied the Idiot. "The fact is, I made an investment some years ago in a certain stock, for which I paid twenty-three. I sold it three weeks ago for one hundred and sixty-three, clearing one hundred and forty dollars each on a thousand shares."

The Poet gasped.

"One hundred and forty thousand dollars profit!" cried Mr. Whitechoker.

"Yes," said the Idiot, calmly, "that's about the size of it. Terrible, isn't it? Here I was a happy man; content to stay at home and toil eight hours a day for a small stipend; living in tolerable comfort, and nothing to worry over. All of a sudden this thing happens, and like all other men of wealth I must become a wanderer. I shudder to think of what might have happened if I'd made a million; I shouldn't have had a home at all then."

The guests looked at their host with amazement. To most of them he had reached the supreme moment of his idiocy.

"Ahem!" said the Poet. "I fail to see why."

"Look at the ways of the millionaire and you'll see," observed the Idiot, suavely. "Given his million he gives up his house and builds himself a small, first-class hotel in some big city, which for the greater part of the year is occupied by servants. He next erects a country palace at Lenox or at Newport. This he calls a cottage, though it usually looks more like a public library or a hospital or a club-house. Then he builds himself a camp, with stained-glass windows, in the Adirondacks, and has to float a small railroad in order to get himself and his wife's trunks into camp. Shortly after these follows a bungalow modelled after a French château, somewhere in the South, and then a yacht warranted to cross the ocean in ten days, and to produce sea-sickness twelve hours sooner than the regular ocean-steamer, becomes one of the necessities of life. Result, he never lives anywhere. To occupy all his residences, camps, and bungalows he has to keep eternally on the move, and when he thinks he needs a trip to Europe he has his yacht got ready and sends it over, going himself on a fast steamer. He meets his yacht at Southampton, and orders the captain to proceed directly to some Mediterranean port, going himself, meanwhile, to London. After a month of London he goes to Paris, and thence to the Mediterranean port, where, after steaming aboard of the yacht for three or four days, he sends the boat back to New York and returns himself by the regular liner. Oh, it's a terrible thing to be a millionaire and have nowhere to lay one's head, with every poorer man envying you, many hating you, and hands raised against you everywhere."

There was a pause, and the assembled company properly expressed their appreciation of the millionaire's hard lot by silence.

"The scheme has its advantages," observed Mrs. Idiot.

"Some," said the Idiot. "But think, my dear, of the town house with thirty-nine servants; the Newport house with thirty-four; the camp with sixty, including gamekeepers and guides; the bungalow with thirty more, and the yacht with a captain, a crew, stewards, stewardesses, and a cook you can't get away from without jumping overboard. Just think how that would multiply your troubles. You would come to me from time to time and ask me how I could expect you to discharge seven butlers and four cooks in one morning, and no doubt you'd request me sometimes to stop in at the intelligence office on my way home and employ a dozen housemaids for you."

"But you would have a manager for all this," suggested Mrs. Pedagog.

"That's the point," observed the Idiot. "We'd have to have a manager, and for my part I shouldn't relish being managed. What chance would Mrs. Idiot have against a manager ahead of an army of servants of such magnitude? We have more than we can keep in subjection as we stand now, with this one small house. If it wasn't for Mary, who keeps an eye on things, I don't know what we should do."

"Well, I am glad you're rich, pa," said Tommy; "you can increase my allowance."

"And I can have a pony," lisped Mollie.

"Alas! Poor children!" cried the Idiot. "That is the saddest part of wealth. Instead of bringing the little ones up ourselves, to be wholly fashionable it will be necessary to sublet the contract to a committee of tutors and governesses. The obligations of social life hereafter will require that we meet our children by appointment only, and that when they dine they shall eat in solitary grandeur until they become so polished in manners that their parents may once more formally welcome them at table. All the good old democratic ways of the domestic republic are now to be set aside. Tommy, instead of yelling for a buckwheat-cake at the top of his lungs, upon our return will request a butler in choicest French to hand him a pâté de foie gras; and dear little Mollie will have to give up attracting the waitress' attention by shying an olive-pit at her and imperiously summon her by means of an electric buzzer set to buzzing with her toe."

"Mercy! What a picture of woe!" cried Mr. Pedagog.

"Not altogether true, is it?" suggested the Doctor.

"Have you ever visited Newport?" asked the Idiot.

"No," said the Doctor, "never."

"Well, don't," said the Idiot, "unless you wish to look upon that picture – a picture of life whence childhood is abolished; where blasé little swells take the place of lively small boys, and diminutive grand duchesses, clad in regal garb, have supplanted the little daughters who bring smiles and sunshine into the life of the common people. Ah, my friends," the Idiot continued, with a shake of his head, "there are sad sights to be seen in this world, but I know of none sadder than those rich little scions of the American aristocracy in whose veins the good red blood of a not very remote ancestry has turned blue through too much high living and too little real living."

"I should think you'd take that hundred and forty thousand dollars and throw it into the sea," said Mr. Brief.

"That would be wicked waste," observed the Idiot. "I propose to use it to win back the good old home-life, and the best way to perpetuate that is to leave it for a time and travel. When you have travelled and seen how uncomfortable others are, and discovered how uncomfortable you are while travelling, nothing can exceed the bliss of getting back to the first simple principles of the real home."

"As a sensible man, why don't you stay here, then?" queried the Poet.

"Because," said the Idiot, "if I stayed here with that hundred and forty thousand dollars on my mind I should nurse it, and in a short while I'd become a millionaire, and such a misfortune as that I shall never invite. We shall go abroad and spend – "

"Not all of it, I hope?" said Mr. Whitechoker.

"No," replied the Idiot. "But enough of it to mitigate the horrors of our condition while absent."

And so it was that Castle Idiot was closed, and that for a time at least "The Idiot at Home" became a thing of the past. Wherever he and his small family may be, may I not bespeak for him the kindly, even affectionate, esteem of those who have followed him with me through these pages? He has his faults; they are many and manifest, for he has never shown the slightest disposition to conceal them, but, as Mrs. Pedagog remarked to me the other night, "He has a large heart, and it is in the right place. If he only wouldn't talk so much!"