"Let us take a night off and enjoy ourselves, my girl," I said at breakfast in one of those elaborately, "off-hand" manners that so frequently betoken profound premeditation. "Somehow or other, we seem to be getting into a groove, and—missing things. Don't you agree with me, Letitia? A nice little dinner down town and a theater will cheer us up wonderfully. We owe it to ourselves, I think, and—well, I believe in paying that kind of debt, and not letting the account drag on," I added felicitously.

"Oh, yes," Letitia assented rather meditatively, and without enthusiasm, "it would be very nice. Not that I feel the need of a change as much as you do, Archie. However, it will do us good, and I'll tell Miriam that we shall not be home, and that if she likes to ask her sister from Tremont to dinner, she can do so. You see, dear, I fancy she was going out to-night. That is why I hesitated about going to the theater. But she will be just as pleased to entertain Mrs. O'Flaherty here, and if you don't mind—"

"Not at all," I said magnanimously, and I really meant it. If cook could have more fun in our "home" than I did, she was welcome to it. Domesticity, under impossible circumstances, was not essentially gay. So set was I upon an evening of forgetfulness, that it seemed a trifle to resign our apartment temporarily to cook and "me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, of Tree-mont."

"I fancy little Letitia looks rather pale," pursued my wife. "The run of the house for a night will do her good, I am sure—"

The run of the house had not been denied little Letitia, though I was determined to keep silent and not argue the matter. Cook's child was not particularly dear to me. We had her for breakfast and dinner. She stood and watched me while I shaved. She had become hatefully affectionate, and abominably fond of me. When I kissed Letitia before I went to the office, the McCaffrey cub insisted upon similar treatment. This might have been touching, but it wasn't. Letitia called me hard-hearted and callous. I believe that she was a bit jealous. Although she devoted herself heart and soul to the brat, it had no use whatsoever for her. But I, who loathed it, was singled out for popularity, and the compliment made no appeal to me.

"Well, my dear," I said, as I rose from the table, "I'll take my evening clothes with me in a dress-suitcase, and you can call for me at the office at a quarter to seven. We'll dine until eight o'clock, and then proceed to the theater. I'll get tickets this morning. What would you like to see?"

Letitia's lack of exuberance was rather depressing. A month ago she would have hailed the prospect with joy, and an ebullition of girlish delight. At present, she was apathetic.

"Oh," she replied in a preoccupied manner, "I have no particular choice." But suddenly she brightened up, and went on: "Yes, I have, Archie. Somebody told me that Merely Mary Arm was absolutely charming. It is the story of a little servant girl, a drudge in a lodging-house, a pathetic figure, that—"

"No, dear," I said peremptorily, "we get all the servant girl we need in this cunning little home. I don't see why we should pay four dollars to see Mr. Zangwill's English idea—idealized, of course, for the stage. It would be cheaper to stay at home and weep over the real American thing."

"But perhaps," said Letitia thoughtfully, "if we could really feel sorry for Mary Ann, we might be less harshly disposed toward Anna Carter, or Mrs. Potzenheimer, or Mrs. McCaffrey."

"No, my dear," I murmured sadly, "it would be waste of time. I decline to see Merely Mary Arm. The subject is disgusting to me. We want to get away from ourselves when we go to the theater. We don't want to reopen wounds, and brood."

"But in this Zangwill play," she persisted, "Mary Ann inherits five million dollars, and becomes a society girl, in pink chiffon and low-neck."

"Which is immoral," I declared. "It is a nasty, low, and revolutionary idea—enough to make all cooks anarchists. Such plays should be prohibited by a censor. Positively to make a heroine of one of these creatures, who break up happy homes and make life unendurable, who seem to be responsible for everything, from race-suicide to—"

"Hush, Archie!" cried Letitia indignantly, "I can't discuss these social questions with you. I haven't been married long enough. I still consider them improper. Besides, you can't accuse Mrs. McCaffrey of race-suicide, with little Letitia—"

"Oh, they reserve the right to have as many children as they like," I retorted bitterly, "but if you had them, they would soon let you know what they thought of you."

"You mustn't talk to me like this, Archie," said Letitia, vexed, "you wouldn't have done so when we were engaged. I consider such conversation rowdy—just fit for the smoking-room. And as we haven't a smoking-room you must restrain yourself, please. However, I am willing to drop Merely Mary Arm. The reason I suggested it was that I thought it might make us both kinder and more indulgent."

"Imagine old Potzenheimer with five million dollars, and low-neck!" I exclaimed, outraged. "I call it absolutely nauseating."

"Not if we could imagine it, dear," she said gently. "Zangwill is an artist, and I hoped that if we saw the subject poetically treated, and really shed tears for Mary Ann, as Aunt Julia wrote me yesterday that she did—"

"No, Letitia. I should shed tears only for Mary Ann's employer. It is the employers who are the martyrs. It would be better and less expensive to stay at home and shed tears for ourselves. For example, I feel depressed when I think of that cabinet of Indian bibelots all in rack and ruin—the only present that Uncle Ben ever gave me, and he is dead!" I added lugubriously.

"How can you be so petty, Archie? I am surprised at you worrying about that ivory rubbish hidden away in a cabinet."

"Please, Letitia," I interrupted with dignity, "please don't call it rubbish. Uncle Ben was not the man to give his favorite nephew rubbish."

"Oh, how we argue! How we argue!" she exclaimed desperately. "I am astonished at this acidulation of character. No more of Merely Mary Arm. You ask me what I want to see, and then decline to see it. It doesn't matter. I'll select something else. Suppose you get tickets for the Barrie play, The Admirable Crichton."

"That's more like it, old girl," I responded exultantly. "Barrie is delightful. He wrote The Little Minister and Quality Street, didn't he? He is reliable; always good—like tea. I admire his originality."

"In The Admirable Crichton," said Letitia, rather demurely, I thought, "there is an old nobleman, who believes in equality. His mania takes the form of treating his servants as his equals. He invites them to parties in his own drawing-room, and makes his own daughters, ladies of title, wait upon them, and ply them with cake and lemonade."

"Bosh!" I ejaculated furiously. "It must be in the air—this vile theme. It is a germ. It is a microbe. I won't pay to see such depravity on the stage. I simply refuse. I—"

"And then," Letitia went on sedately—I couldn't help fancying that she was enjoying herself, and that galled me—"they are all wrecked on a desert island, and the servant becomes the master of the situation, while the old nobleman fetches and carries, and proves that outside of civilization there is no such thing as social superiority."

"Ha! ha!" I laughed sarcastically. "Imagine going to a desert island to prove it. He could find proof of that right here in New York—right here in this very apartment."

"Archie!"

"Certainly he could. Moreover, it is an idea that needs no illumination, to my mind. If that is The Admirable Crichton I don't want to see it. I wouldn't sit it out. Possibly it might be amusing in England. Here, I should consider it insulting. The idea of letting a foreigner treat the servant question for New York. Where is the American playwright? Why don't we foster him? Why are we obliged to swallow the dramatic food made for European stomachs? The only 'servant' play I want to see, is one that places her in her true light—as the bar to marriage, the bar to family life, the bar to domesticity, the bar to digestion, to mental serenity, to—"

Letitia rose suddenly, and confronted me. "I can suggest nothing else," she asserted doggedly; "I seem unable to please you. Take tickets for anything you like."

"There seems to be a cook in everything," I declared dejectedly, "and I want to escape it. Don't be so angry with me, Letitia. In reality, it is for your sake as much as for my own. I guess I'll take tickets for the opera. It's Parsifal to-night. I never read musical criticisms, as they are so prohibitively prosy, but if you can assure me that there is no cook in Parsifal—"

"How ignorant you are, Archie! Parsifal is sacred, and deals with the Holy Grail."

"Still, they might sneak a cook in," I insisted with irony. "I wouldn't put them past it. Everything is adapted, nowadays, and grand opera artists would lend themselves so easily to the rÔles of cooks. However, Parsifal seems safe. There is less risk about it than anything else. To be sure, Wagner is rather stupefying, and you remember, dear, that we had our first quarrel after hearing Siegfried. It made us both so cross."

"It doesn't need Siegfried to do that, nowadays," she said sadly.

"I'm a brute, Letitia. I know I am. Forgive me just this once, dear, and I'll try and be better. I—I'll look on the bright side of things, and—and I won't argue so much. I'll take tickets for Parsifal even though they cost ten dollars apiece. The idea of the Holy Grail appeals to me. It doesn't sound humorous, and Barrie and Zangwill seem to be dying to vent their sense of the ridiculous upon a suffering public. So it is understood, Letitia. Parsifal to-night, preceded by a dainty little dinner."

"The opera begins at five," said Letitia, "and I don't think I could leave the house at that hour. It is an uncomfortable hour."

"Quite right, dear. Let Parsifal adapt itself to us. It is absurd to make a toil of pleasure. Besides, one never understands anything at the opera, so it doesn't really matter at what time one gets there. We will not alter our plans. I shall wait at the office for you until a quarter to seven. Then dinner, a cab, and Parsifal. Say that this pleases you, Letitia."

"Oh, I'm glad, dear. I want to see you pleased. I hate to have my poor boy cross and disagreeable, and misanthropic. And I am anxious to hear Parsifal, so that I can say I have heard it. You understand, Archie. Perhaps we may not enjoy it while we are there, but I know we shall be delighted when it is over, and we can truthfully say that we have sat through it. There is no glory in sitting through an amusing play. But it is quite a feather in one's cap to go deliberately through a performance of Parsifal. It is a good idea, Archie."

Letitia put my evening clothes in a dress-suit-case, and, with a heart once more lightened, I departed. The old affection lingered in her parting kiss; she clung to me tenderly, and although the McCaffrey brat hovered around, and Letitia insisted upon my kissing its sticky face, I made no protest. The prospect of a night off made a boy of me again. I felt young, and enthusiastic, and happy.

It was not easy to buy Parsifal tickets. Evidently the subject of the Holy Grail, heavy, lugubrious, massive, with an elusive fantasy about it, appealed to the wearied hearts of New York. A long line of women stood making Parsifal investments, anxious doubtless, as we were, to spend a cookless evening. Probably these women would have winced at suggestions of Merely Mary Ann and The Admirable Crichton. I couldn't help thinking, as, in return for a twenty-dollar bill, I received a couple of pasteboard bits, that if New York managers had homes of their own, and lived the lives of the public, for which they cater, their views upon the desirability of certain plays would change. Managers are not conspicuously domestic in their habits, and they have no inkling of the real joys and sorrows of their clients. They produce plays written in other lands, for the people of other lands, and reason that human nature is the same everywhere. In which, I ween, they err. They are impatient and restive at their many failures, but—they continue their policy of risk.

The day passed slowly. Tamworth seemed sorry for me when I told him that I was going to the opera, and suggested that I take a pillow with me—a rather tactless remark, I thought. He had once suffered, he said, from insomnia, and the doctors had almost despaired of curing him. He grew thin and restless, through lack of sleep. He read the very dullest books he could find, every night—all the romances and historical novels—and even these that had never failed him before as a narcotic, were useless. Then, in an inspired moment, he went to the Metropolitan House and tackled Der Nibelungenring. Wagner triumphed over the physicians. Morpheus emerged from his hiding-place, and insomnia was vanquished. Said Tamworth: "Nowadays, if I have a return of my old complaint, I just walk up Broadway and look at the outside of the Metropolitan House. The effect is magical. I go home and sleep the sleep of the virtuous."

This was not encouraging, but I did not repine. Better a peaceful nerveless lethargy, induced by the Holy Grail, than the discordant din of horse-laughter set in motion by ill-timed variations, in fantasy form, upon tragic domestic themes.

At six o'clock, I was left alone in the office. Tamworth went home; and so did the typists and clerks. It occurred to me that I might utilize a half-hour or so by working upon my Lives of Great Men, the thread of which I had lost. I was hopelessly out of tune with lives of great men. Lives of great women—the great women of the kitchen—had lured me astray. Goethe was obscured by Mrs. Potzenheimer; MoliÈre lurked beneath the shade of Birdie Miriam McCaffrey. I found it quite impossible to concentrate my thoughts. They were diffuse, and unresponsive. They wobbled; and I abandoned my task. Instead, I donned my evening clothes, and made myself look as presentable as I could. I was alarmingly hungry, and could not repress a sensation of furtive delight at the thought that we were to dine at a restaurant, where nobody would say "Ga-ga!" and I should not have to call the waiter Miriam. We would begin steadily and industriously with oysters, and plow our way methodically through everything, until we landed safe and sound, at coffee.

Man proposes. At a quarter to seven I put on my overcoat, and went to the window to wave to Letitia as soon as I saw her approach. She was generally punctuality itself, and prided herself upon it. As time dragged itself slowly along, however, and the slim little figure I knew so well was not to be detected in the Twenty-third crowd, I began to get nervous and apprehensive. Perhaps there had been an accident on the elevated. I thought up all sorts of catastrophes, and when the clock struck seven I had worked myself into a distressing state of perturbation. Something had assuredly happened, and I made up my mind to wait five minutes longer before telephoning. If Letitia had left the house—as she must have done—it was not much use telephoning. Certainly Birdie—I always thought of her aggressively as Birdie—would know nothing about answering telephone rings. Moreover, she was probably vividly engaged in entertaining "me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, of Tree-mont."

Seven-twenty, and no Letitia. Even if she came, we should have but forty minutes to devote to dinner. Food, however, was rapidly losing all interest for me. I grew cold as the minutes passed. A sense of powerlessness overcame me. At last I could stand it no longer, and going to the telephone I rang up my own address, and then stood, nervously shivering, until I got it.

"This is Archie," I said tremblingly. "It is I—Archie. Who is that at the 'phone?"

A moment's pause, then: "Birdie—I mean Miriam. You are Archie?"

My worst fears seemed about to be realized. I felt like the pain-racked husband in the little play At the Telephone. I scarcely dared to listen. "This is Mr. Fairfax, Mrs. McCaffrey. What has happened? Tell me quickly."

"Letitia's awful sick, and the doctor's coming to see what the matter is."

The perspiration was trickling down my face. The roots of my hair seemed to tighten. Letitia was too ill to answer the telephone! The familiarity of cook's allusion to my wife passed unnoticed in the wave of apprehension that swept over me.

"Telephone at once for the doctor, and I'll come right back," I commanded.

"The doctor's telephone doesn't work," was the reply, "and your wife has gone to fetch him. Me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, was too tired to go, and I had to stay with Letitia."

A ray of light! I laughed—almost hysterically. The sudden removal of the nervous tension nearly made me collapse. It was the McCaffrey brat that was "awful sick," and as I hung up the receiver, I experienced nothing but a sense of utter thankfulness. Our little dinner most assuredly was off, and the Holy Grail was lost. Then a normal sense of vexation set in, and I felt indignant as I thought of Letitia trotting off for De Voursney, while I was left, lamenting.

If I had only been strong-minded enough to dine in town alone, and go to the opera in solitary state! Now that I knew Letitia was unharmed, I could easily have done this, and telephoned my determination to her. Unluckily, I was not built for such a course. Such stringency might be effective, but it was beyond me. I could not take my pleasures wifelessly. The only thing to do was to go home, and I should have been impelled to this course, even if I had been expected to sit up all night with cook's brat—and I was not at all sure that Letitia would not suggest this.

My mood had changed, and despondency had set in. I put my clothes into the dress-suit-case, locked up the office, and went home as rapidly as I could, after having bestowed the two ten-dollar Parsifal tickets upon the elevator boy, who rather ruefully told me that he had seats for the Third Avenue Theater, where they were playing a pretty little thing called Too Proud to Beg. I was not too proud, however, and I begged him to take twenty-dollars' worth of opera, for my sake, which he promised to do.

Letitia was very flushed and excited when I reached our apartment. It was she who opened the door, and I noticed that she had her hat and coat on.

"Oh, Archie, I'm so sorry," she said lachrymosely, "and I do hope that you are not disappointed. Poor little Letitia is quite ill and feverish. She has been moaning and crying 'Ga-ga!' I had to go for De Voursney, and he is here now. I couldn't send Miriam, or Mrs. O'Flaherty, or the three girls."

"The three girls!"

"Yes, Archie. Cook has three other daughters, who live with Mrs. O'Flaherty, and they are all here—very nice respectable girls."

"She has no right—"

"What can I do, Archie? Besides, they live in Tremont, so that really they don't concern us. She might have been frank, and have candidly admitted that little Letitia had sisters. But, perhaps, if you had to earn your living as a cook, dear, you would do the same thing under the same circumstances. We won't argue; I don't feel equal to it. Ah, here is the doctor."

Dr. De Voursney entered at that moment, and shook hands most amiably. His presence was generally reassuring, but I must admit that at present I felt no very wild sense of alarm.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Fairfax,"' he said, rubbing his hands affably. "The little patient has a febrile disturbance, and I notice a stiffening of the parotid gland in front of the ear. I should say undoubtedly—in fact I can affirm—that it is a case of cynanche parotidaea."

Letitia grew pale. "How horrible!" she exclaimed in a low voice.

"Perhaps you could give it us in English," I suggested ironically. "Mrs. Fairfax is well versed in Latin, but medical phrases, I am afraid—"

"Certainly—oh, certainly," he said, in irrepressible good humor. "I generally use Latin in apartment houses and reserve mere English for the tenements. Cynanche parotidaea is very prevalent just at present. It is almost epidemic. Gentle laxatives and warm fomentations are really all that it is necessary to prescribe. In English, we call the malady, mumps."

"Mumps!" I murmured.

"Mumps!" exclaimed Letitia.

"It is not serious, as you may perceive. It is painful and quite ugly to look at. I shall leave some directions with the mother and shall come in to-morrow morning."

"Is it catching?" I asked anxiously.

"Nothing more so—nothing more so," he replied cheerfully. "It is highly contagious. It spreads through schools, through apartment houses, with the rapidity of lightning."

"Then you think that my wife might—"

"I should say it was very likely—extremely probable," he declared, beaming upon us; "still it might be worse. Now, you know, scarlet fever, at present, is raging in this neighborhood. I have just come from a house where six little children are attacked, and the seventh has all the symptoms—"

We bowed him out in a trail of depression, and stood looking at each other silently. Then Letitia slowly took off her hat and coat and I did the same, deposing my dress-suit-case in my bedroom viciously. Fate was not smiling upon us.

Miriam came bustling in, with a grim, set face. She scowled as she saw us, and placed her arms akimbo, in the style made popular by fishwives, and Madame Angot.

"I've packed off me sister, Mrs. O'Flaherty, and me daughters in a hurry," she said savagely. "Yer doctor says it's catching, and it's just me luck that Muriel, and Rosalind, and Winnifred should have been here. Worse luck to it, say I! Me poor Letitia, a-prattling so cutely as she's laid low by the nasty disease."

"It is not at all serious," murmured Letitia sympathetically.

"For them as ain't got it—no, it ain't serious," said Birdie Miriam McCaffrey mockingly. "For them as ain't got it—it just tickles, that's all. Curse me for a-comin' here. That's my motto. 'The neighborhood's just alive with it,' says yer doctor. 'It's in the air. It's epileptic. Why,' says he, 'there's hardly a house where they ain't got mumps.' Nice for me, eh? If them's yer Christian principles, luring a hard-working woman, with a child, into a mumpy house, and a-saying no word to put her on her guard—"

"You can go whenever you are ready," I said loftily, "and no impertinence, please."

"As soon as my Letitia can be moved—if the poor thing ever lives through it—and I have me doubts, as she's that delicate—we'll go. Oh, we'll go, right enough. Don't you worry about that. Not if yez poured gold at me feet, and if I wuz a-perishing for want of a bit o' food, to keep body and soul together, would I stay in a house that's alive with germs. 'Yes,' says yer doctor, 'it's a germ. It's a mikey in the air.' Me poor Mike! 'A mikey in the air,' says he. And I only hope that me Muriel, and Rosalind, and Winnifred will be spared, as it's so catching. Why didn't ye tell me, Mrs. Fairfax? Why didn't ye say, when ye come down to Sixth Avenue, that there was diseases all around? Play fair; that's my motto. I don't believe in no underhand game, I don't. Not for me!"

As she flounced out of the room, Letitia sank into a chair and burst into tears. The twittering of Birdie had been horribly effective. It had made me feel nervous and unstrung. Logic was quite unavailing, and for the first time in my life, I realized that those with a sense of humor might have fared better than we did.