THE IDIOT***
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THE IDIOT
by
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
Author of "Coffee and Repartee" "The Water Ghost, and Others" "Three Weeks in Politics" Etc.
Illustrated
New York Harper & Brothers Publishers 1895 Copyright, 1895, by Harper & Brothers. All rights reserved.
TO WILLIAM K. OTIS
ILLUSTRATIONS
"CERTAINLY. I ASKED FOR ANOTHER CUP"
"THE NUISANCE OF HAVING TO PAY"
"SHE COULD NOT POSSIBLY GET ABOARD AGAIN"
"DEMANDS TICKETS FOR TWO"
"THEY ARE GIVEN TO REHEARSING AT ALL HOURS"
"'HA! HA! I HAVE HIM NOW!'"
"HAS YOUR FRIEND COMPLETED HIS ARTICLE ON OLD JOKES?"
THEY DEPARTED
"YOU FISH ALL DAY, AND HAVE NO LUCK"
HE COULD BE HEARD THROWING THINGS ABOUT
"HE WAS NOT MURDERED"
"SUPERINTENDENT SMITHERS HAS NOT ABSCONDED"
THE INSPIRED BOARDER PAID HIS BILL
"I KNOW YOU CAN'T, BECAUSE IT ISN'T THERE"
"YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF HEARD IN SAN FRANCISCO"
THE PROPHETOGRAPH
"I GRASPED IT IN MY TWO HANDS"
"PIANO-PLAYING ISN'T ALWAYS MUSIC"
"THE MOON ITSELF WILL BE USED"
"DECLINES TO BE RIDDEN"
"THE BIBLIOMANIAC WOULD BE RAISING BULBS"
"DIDN'T KNOW ENOUGH TO CHOOSE HIS OWN FACE"
"JANITORS HAVE TO BE SEEN TO"
"MY ELOQUENCE FLOATED UP THE AIR-SHAFT"
THE IDIOT
I
For some weeks after the happy event which transformed the popular Mrs. Smithers into the charming Mrs. John Pedagog all went well at that lady's select home for single gentlemen. It was only proper that during the honey-moon, at least, of the happy couple hostilities between the Idiot and his fellow-boarders should cease. It was expecting too much of mankind, however, to look for a continued armistice, and the morning arrived when Nature once more reasserted herself, and trouble began. Just what it was that prompted the remark no one knows, but it happened that the Idiot did say that he thought that, after all, life on a canal-boat had its advantages. Mr. Pedagog, who had come into the dining-room in a slightly irritable frame of mind, induced perhaps by Mrs. Pedagog's insistence that as he was now part proprietor of the house he should be a little more prompt in making his contributions towards its maintenance, chose to take the remark as implying a reflection upon the way things were managed in the household.
