Seems to me there's material for poetry in that, isn't there? She was
a self-willed woman. Often, when she wanted to go to a sewing-bee or
to gad about somewhere, maybe, I'd stuff that leg up the chimney or
hide it in the wood-pile. And when I wouldn't tell her where it was,
do you know what she'd do?"

"What?"

"Why, she'd lash an umbrella to her stump and drift off down the
street 'sif that umbrella was born there. You couldn't get ahead of
her. She was ingenious.

"So I thought I'd mention a few facts to you, and you can just throw
them together and make them rhyme, and I'll call 'round and pay you
for them. What day? Tuesday? Very well; I'll run in on Tuesday and see
how you've fixed her up."

Then Mr. Smith smoothed up his hat with his handkerchief, wiped the
accumulated sorrow from his eyes, placed his hat upon his head,
and sailed serenely out and down the stairs toward his desolated
hearthstone.

The last caller was an artist. He took a chair and said,

"My name is Brewer; I am the painter of the allegorical picture of
'The Triumph of Truth' on exhibition down at Yelverton's. I called,
major, to make some complaint about the criticism of the work which
appeared in your paper. Your critic seems to have misunderstood
somewhat the drift of the picture. For instance, he says--Let me quote
the paragraph: