Indeed, half a box did all the floors we have. No slipper would stick
to the paste, but the paste would stick to the slipper; and the greasy
Prince did in spots all the floors we have: the laundry floor, the
attic floor, and the very boards of the vegetable cellar.

I am young yet. I have not had time to collect my twelve two-horse
loads. But I am getting them fast.

Only the other day a tall lean man came to the side door, asking after
my four boys by name, and inquiring when my new book would be off the
stocks, and, incidentally, showing me a patent-applied-for device
called "The Fat Man's Friend."

"The Friend" was a steel-wire hoop, shaped and jointed like a pair of
calipers, but knobbed at its points with little metal balls. The
instrument was made to open and spring closed about the Fat Man's neck,
and to hold, by means of a clasp on each side, a napkin, or bib, spread
securely over the Fat Man's bosom.

"Ideal thing, now, is n't it?" said the agent, demonstrating with his
handkerchief.

"Why--yes"--I hesitated--"for a fat man, perhaps."

"Just so," he replied, running me over rapidly with a professional eye;
"but you know, Professor, that when a man's forty, or thereabouts, it's
the nature of him to stouten. Once past forty he's liable to pick up
any day. And when he starts, you know as well as I, Professor, when he
starts there's nothing fattens faster than a man of forty. You ought
to have one of these 'Friends' on hand."