"Never had it," said I; "but I can imagine it."

"Don't think you can," sighed Cupid. "There are situations in real
life, sir, which surpass the wildest flights of the imagination. That
is why truth is stranger than fiction. However," he added, his face
brightening, "it was a useful experience to me in my professional
work. I learned for the first time that when a mother-in-law comes in
at the door, intending to remain indefinitely, love flies out at the
window. Or, as Solomon--I believe it was Solomon. He wrote Proverbs,
did he not?"

"Yes," said I. "He and Josh Billings."

"Well," vouchsafed Cupid, "I can't swear as to the authorship of the
proverb, but some proverbialist said 'Two is company and three is a
crowd.' I'd never known that before, but I learned it then, and began
to stay away from home a little myself, so that we should not be
crowded."

I commended the young man for his philosophy.

"Nevertheless, my dear Dan," I added, "you ought to be more
autocratic. Knowing that two is company and three otherwise, you have
been guilty of allowing many a young couple who have trusted in you to
begin house-keeping with an inevitable third person. We see it every
day among the mortals."

"What has been good enough for me, sir," the boy returned, with a
comical assumption of sternness--he looked so like a fat baby of three