ideal one if only its owners remember to set it, but the trouble with
the shifting calendars is that so few people remember to adjust them.

[Illustration]

COMBINATION COT AND STEP-LADDER.--We have had lots of clever inventions
for saving room in small houses, but the most original is certainly this
combination of a bed and a step-ladder. It should prove a very useful
article where the occupant of the bed is a light sleeper and doesn't
mind having to get up when the step-ladder is needed. It might also be
useful in very large families where chairs were scarce. By day it could
be stood upright, and the children roosted on its various steps. By
night the little brood could come down from their perches, the steps be
laid lengthwise, and the family put to bed on the cot.

With the addition of a strong wire spring attached to an alarm clock, it
should also make an excellent servants' bed.

[Illustration]

At 6:30 every morning the alarm would work the spring, and the bed
immediately be transformed into a pair of steps. This would promote
habits of punctuality and early rising in domestic servants that would
be invaluable to them.

It is true that they might resent the invention, and leave the
situation, but the mistress would still have the combination bed for the
newcomer.

It would be an invaluable article for house decorators and