The cheerful smugglers

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hard work to make his car-fare money last through the week.

But one thing he never neglected was to bring home to his wife a box of bon-bons every Saturday evening, and one of the things that Mrs. Fenelby flaunted before her female friends was the fact that although she had been married for five years Tom never missed the box of candy. This was the visible sign that his love had not dtclined, and that he still had a lover's thoughtf ulness.

On the Friday after the Fenelby Tariff had been adopted, Mr. Fenelby came home with a box of cigars under his arm. It was his usual box of twenty-five, and the usual brand, for which he paid ten cents each, and after he had kissed Laura he gaily deposited twenty-five cents in Bobberts' bank. This was the first money he had put in the bank under the new tariff laws, and he took an especial pleasure in depositing it. Mrs. Fenelby had put many pennies and nickels in the bank during the week, because she had had to buy a number of things from the vegetable man, and others.

"How much did you put in, dear?" asked Mrs. Fenelby, as she heard the coin rattle down among its fellows.

"A quarter/' said Mr. Fenelby, gaily. "I tell you, Laura, that boy will soon have a lot of money if it keeps coming in' at that rate. A quarter here, and a quarter there! It is amazing how it mounts up.'*

"Yes,'' she answered. "But should n't you put in seventy-five cents, Tom? Cigars are a luxury, are n't they? And you know you said luxuries were thirty per cent."

Mr. Fenelby turned quickly.

"Nonsense!" he said. "Any man will tell you that cigars ftre an absolute necessity. Just as much so as food or drink or clothing. Every one knows that, Laura."

Bobberts

'"Why, Tom," said Mrs. Fenelby, "you told me, only last night, when I merely hinted that you were smoking too much, that you could quit any minute you chose, and that it had no hold on you whatever. You said you only smoked a little for the pleasure it gave you, and that there was no danger at all of its ever becoming a necessity to you. Of course, I don't care, for myself, what you put in the bank, but I should not think you would want to rob poor little Bobberts of what he really should have, just because you can twist out of it by claiming —

There were signs of tears, and Mr.

Fenelby cheerfully stepped up and dropped fifty cents more into the bank. It was one of his periods of plenty, and he would have been willing to put dollars into the bank, instead of quarters, rather than have Laura think he was trying to defraud Bobberts. He explained to Laura that all he wanted to know was what he really ought to pay, and then he would pay it cheerfully. Probably all men are like that. They only want to have their taxes assessed fairly, and they will pay them joyfully. One of the prettiest sights imaginable is to see the tax-payers gleefully crowding to pay their taxes. I say imaginable, because it is one of the sights that has to be imagined.

The next evening was warm, and Bobberts was sleeping nicely, so Mrs. Fenelby walked part of the way to the station to meet Tom when he came home, and her eyes brightened when she saw the square parcel that she knew to be the box of candy, in his hand. He kissed her, right there on the street, as suburban husbands are not ashamed to do, and put the box of candy in her hand.

"And what do you think my news is?" he asked, after he had asked about Bobberts. "Brother Bill is coming to make us that visit that he has been promising for ever so long—"

"Tom!'' cried Laura. "And what do you think my news is? Kitty is coming to spend two weeks with us! Is n't that the j oiliest thing you ever heard of? Both coming at the same time ! 1 wonder if they — "

"Well," said Tom, who generally had a pretty clear idea of what Laura meant to say next, "if they did fall in love with each other, it would not be such a bad match. Your cousin Kitty is as nice as any girl I know, and I rather think Billy is n't such a bad sort. Anyway, they will make it pleasant for each other."

'^'It will brighten us up all around to have them here/' said Mrs, Fenelby, ^T[ wonder whether we ought to make them pay tariff on things. That was the first thing I thought of, when I read that Kitty meant to visit us. It does seem a little like inhospitality, to make them pay tariff/'

"Not a bit !" said Tom- "They will like it. It will be a lot of fun for them, and you know it will, Laura. Would we like to be left out of anything of that kind if we were visiting any one*? Of course not- I don't know Kitty as well as you do, but speaking for Billy I can say that he would be mighty hurt if we did not

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■ f r treat him just as we treat the rest of the family. He will think it is a jolly game/'

"I am not afraid of how Kitty will take it, when I tell her it is all for the benefit of Bobberts. She will be wild about the tariff. The only thing I am afraid of is that she will go and buy things she does n't need or want, just in order that she can put money in Bobberts' bank," said Mrs. Fenelby. '1 told Bridget about the tariff to-day, and she was so interested ! Every one I tell about it thinks it is a splendid idea, and wonders how you could think of it."

"I do think of some things that other people do not think of," said Mr. Fenelby, rather proudly; 'T>ut that is because I accustom myself to use my brains/'

"But it is surprising how a little thing like this tariff counts up!'' said Mrs. Fenelby. "My bills this week were fourteen dollars, and I had to put a dollar and forty cents into Bobberts' bank, and then I had to pay Bridget's month's wages to-day, but I did n't have to pay any tariff on that, and I had to pay the gas bill, too; but I did n't have to pay any tariff on that, thank goodness—"

"Of course you have to pay tariff on the gas bill !" exclaimed Mr. Fenelby. 'The gas came into the house, did n't it?"

''But you said I did n't have to pay tariff on the rent bill/' argued Laura; "and the rent bill is just as much a bill as the gas bill is. You know very well, Tom, that we always figure on those three things as if they were just alike — the rent, and the gas, and Bridget, — and I don't see why, if there is a tariff on gas why there should not be one on rent."

"Rent is n't a thing that comes into the house," explained Mr. Fenelby. "You can't see rent."

"You can't see gas," said Mrs. Fenelby.

"You can see it if it is lighted," said

Mr. Fenelby, "and you can smell it any time you want to. Gas is a real object, or thing, and we buy it, and it pays a duty.''

"Very well,'' said Mrs. Fenelby. "Then I ought to pay duty on Bridget, too. She is a real thing, and we pay money for her, just as much as we do for gas, and she is a thing that comes into the house. If I don't pay on Bridget, I don't see why I should pay on the gas. The next thing you will be saying that Bridget is a luxury, and that I ought to pay thirty per cent, on her! Probably I ought to pay a duty on Bobberts! I don't think it is fair that I should pay on everything. I will not pay ten per cent, on the gas bill. Everything seems to come the same day."

''Laura!" exclaimed Mr. Fenelby, with sudden joy, 'you don't have to pay on the gas bill this month! I wonder I had n't thought of it. That gas bill is for gas used before the tariff was adopted! And now that you know about it, you will expect to pay next month."

"I shall warn Bridget again about using so much in the range," said Laura. "We shall have to economize very carefully, Tom. I can see that. The tariff is going to make our living very expensive."

They had reached the house, and had lingered a minute on the porch, and now they went inside, for they heard the dinner-bell tinkle.

"You had better drop eight cents in the bank before you forget it," said Mrs. Fenelby.

"Eight cents?" inquired Tom, quite at a loss to remember what he was to pay eight cents for.

"Eight cents," repeated his wife. "For the candy. It is eighty cents a pound, is n't it? But it is a luxury, is n't it? That would be twenty-four cents!"

"Yes, twenty-four cents," said Tom, smiling. "Twenty-four cents; but I don't pay it. You pay it."

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"/ pay it!" cried Mrs. Fenelby. "The idea! I did n't buy the candy. I did n't even ask you to buy it, Tom, although I am very glad to have it, and you are a dear to bring it to me. But you are the one to pay for it. You bought it.''

''My dear," said Mr. Fenelby, "whoever brings a thing into the house pays the duty on it. I gave you the box of candy when we were a full block from the house, and you accepted it, and it was your property after that, and you brought it into the house, and you must pay the duty on it."

For a moment Mrs. Fenelby was inclined to be hurt, and then she laughed.

"What is it?' her husband asked, as he seated himself at his end of the table, and unfolded his napkin.

'1 '11 pay the twenty-four cents; but please don't bring me any more candy," she said. '1 can't afford presents. But that was n't what I was laughing about. I just happened to think of Will and Kitty. Will they have to pay duty on their trunks and all the things they have in them? Kitty has the most luxurious dresses, and luxuries pay thirty per cent. If she will have to pay on them perhaps

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THE CHEERFUL SMUGGLERS I had better telegraph her to come with only a dress suit case/'

They did not telegraph Kitty. About a week later Kitty arrived, and the next day Billy came, and to each the Fenelbys explained the Fenelby Tariff, on the way up from the station. Both thought it was a splendid idea, and agreed to uphold the tariff law and abide by it and be governed by it, and when Mrs. Fenelby handed Kitty's baggage-checks to Tom and asked him to see that the three trunks were sent over from the city and delivered at the house, Mr. Fenelby had no idea what was in store for him.

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WHEN Mr. Fenelby went to the city in the morning he gave Kitty's trunk checks to the expressman. When he returned to his home in the evening he found Kitty and Mrs. Fenelby on the porch, and Mrs. Fenelby was explaining to her visitor, for about the tenth time, the workings of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff. She had explained to Kitty how the tariff had come to be adopted, how it was to supply an education fund for Bobberts — who was at that moment asleep in his crib, upstairs — and how every necessity brought into the house had to pay into Bobberts' bank ten per cent., and every luxury thirty per cent. Kitty was a dear, as was Mrs. Fenelby, but they were as different as cousins could well be, for while Mrs. Fenelby was the man's ideal of a gentle domestic person, Kitty was the man's ideal of a forceful, jolly girl, and as full of liveliness as a well behaved young lady could be. She was properly interested in Bobberts and admired him loudly, but in her heart she was not sorry that Mr. Fenelby' s brother Will was to be a visitor at the house during her stay.

She did not show any unmaidenly curiosity in regard to Brother Will, but between doses of Bobberts and Tariff she managed to learn about all Mrs. Fenelby knew regarding Brother Will's past, present and future, including a pretty minute description of his appearance, habits and beliefs.

Brother Will had arrived that very day, and on the way up from the station the Fenelbys had explained to him all about the Domestic Tariff, and also that until a bed could be sent out from the city he would have to find a bed wherever he could, and so it happened that he went right back to the city with Mr. Fenelby, and had not met Kitty, as he preferred to sleep in the city, rather than in the hammock on the porch.

There is an admirable natural honesty in women that prevents them from claiming that their husbands are perfection. In some this is so abnormally developed that, to be on the safe side, I suppose, they will not allow that their husbands have any virtues whatever; in others the trace of this type of honesty is so slight that they will claim to every one, except their dearest friends, that their husbands are the best in the world. The normal wife first announces that her hus-

I 1 ii band is as near perfect as any man can be, and then proceeds to enumerate all his imperfections, bad humors, and annoying habits, under the impression, perhaps, that she is praising him. Mrs. Fenelby had been proceeding in somewhat this way in her conversa- I •

tion with Kitty, under the impression 1 1 }

that she was showing Kitty how lovely and domestically perfect was her life, but Kitty gained from it only the impression that Mrs. Fenelby had become the slave of Mr. Fenelby and Bobberts.

The more Mrs. Fenelby explained i J

the workings of the Domestic Tariff i

the more positive of this did Kitty be-

I come. It was Laura who paid all the household bills, and so Laura had to pay the tariff duty on whatever came into the house ; it was Laura who had to give up her weekly box of candy because if she received it she had to pay twenty-four cents duty. To Kitty the Fenelby Domestic Tariff seemed to be a scheme concocted by Mr. Fenelby to make Laura provide an education fund for Bobberts. Poor Laura was evidently being misused and did not know it. Poor Laura must be rescued, and given that womanly freedom that women are supposed to long for, even when they don't want it. Poor meek Laura needed some one to put a foot down, and Kitty felt that she had an admirable foot for that or any other purpose. She proposed to put it down.

When Mr* Fenelby entered his yard on his return from the city he stopped short, and then looked up to where the two young women were sitting on the porch.

"Hello I" he said, "What is the matter with these trunks^ Would n*t that expressman carry them upstairs 1 I declare, those fellows are getting too independent for comfort. Unless you hold a dollar tip out before them they won't so much as turn around. Now, I distinctly told this fellow to carry

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:t A tt i II these three trunks upstairs, and I said I would make it all right with him, and here he leaves them on the lawn. I hope, dear, you were at home when he came/'

"Yes, dear,'' said Mrs. Fenelby, '1 was, and you should not blame the poor man. I am sure he tried hard enough to carry them up. He actually insisted on carrying them up whether we wanted them up or not. He was quite rude about it. He said you had told him to carry them up and that he meant to do it whether we let him or not, and — and at last I had to give him a dollar to leave them down here."

"You — you gave him a dollar not

KITTY'S TRUNKS to cany these trunks upstairs!'' exclaimed Mr- Fcnelby. "Did you say you paid the man a dollar not to carry them upstairs?''

"Ihadto,"saidMrs. Fenelby. "It was the only way I could prevent him from doing it. He said you told him to carry them up, and that up they must go, if he had to break down the front door to do it, I think he must have been drinking^ Tom, he used such awful language, and at last he got quite maudlin about it and sat down on one of the trunks and cried» , actually cried I He said that for years and years he had refused to carry trunks upstairs, and that now, just

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.1 it when he had joined the Salvation Army, and was trying to lead a better life, and be kind and helpful and earn an extra dollar for his family by carrying trunks upstairs when gentlemen asked him to, I had to step in and refuse to let him carry trunks upstairs, and that this was the sort of thing that discouraged a poor man who was trying to make up for his past errors. So I gave him a dollar to leave them down here/'

Mr. Fenelby looked at the three big trunks ruefully, and shook his head at them.

"Well,'' he said, '1 suppose it is all right, Laura, but I can't see why you [66]

KITTY'S TRUNKS would n't let him take them up. You know I don't enjoy that kind of work, and that I don't think it is good for me.

"Kitty did n't want them taken up," said Mrs. Fenclby, gently. "She — she wanted them left down here/'

''Down here?" asked Mr. Fenelby, as if dazed. ''Down here on the grass?'

"Yes/' said Kitty, lightly. "It was my idea. Laura had nothing to do with it at alh I thought it would be nice to have the trunks down here on the lawn. Everywhere I visit they always take my trunks up to my room,

II and it gets so tiresome always having the same thing happen, so I thought that this time I would have a variety and leave my trunks on the lawn. I never in my life left my trunks on a front lawn, and I wanted to see how it would be. You don't think they will hurt the grass do you, Mr. Fenelby?"

Kitty asked this with such an air of sincerity that Mr. Fenelby seated himself on one of the trunks and looked up at her anxiously. He could not recall that he had ever heard of any weakness of mind in Kitty or in her family, but he could not doubt his ears.

KITTY^S TRUNKS "But — but — " he said, ''but you don't mean to leave them here, do you?"

Kitty smiled down at him reassuringly.

"Of course, if it is going to harm the grass at all, Mr. Fenelby, I sha'n't think of it," she said. "I know that sometimes when a board or anything lies on the grass a long time the grass under the board gets all white, and if the trunks are going to make white spots on your lawn, I '11 have them removed, but I thought that if we moved the trunks around to different places every day it would avoid that. But you know more about that than I do.

Do you think they will make white places on the lawn, Mr, Fenelby?"

"I don't know/' he said, abstractedly. "I mean, yes, of course they will- But they will get rained on. You don't want your trunks rained on, you know. Trunks are n't meant to be rained on. It is n't good for them." A thought came to him suddenly. "You and Laura have n't quarreled, have you?" he asked, for he thought that perhaps that was why Kitty would not have her trunks carried up.

"Indeed not!" cried Kitty, putting her arm affectionately around Laura's waist.

"I — I thought perhaps you had/' faltered Mr. Fenelby. "I thought — that is to say^ — I was afraid perhaps you were going away again, I thought you were going to make us a good, long visit — ''

"Indeed I am/' said Kitty, cheerfully. "I am going to stay weeks, and weeks, and weeks. I am going to stay 1

until you are all tired to death of me, and beg me to begone.''

"That is good," said Mr. Fenelby, ,

with an attempt at pleasure. "But don't you think, since you are going to do what we want you to do, and '

stay for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, that you had better let your trunks be taken up to your room ? Or — FU tell you what we '11 do! Suppose we just take the trunks into the lower hall?"

He felt pretty certainly, now, that Kitty must have had a little touch of, say, sunstroke, or something of that kind, and he went on in a gently argumentative tone,

"Just into the lower hall," he said. "That would be different from having them in your room, and it would save my grass. I worked hard to get this lawn looking as it does now, Kitty, and I cannot deny that big trunks like these will not do it any good. Let us say we will put the trunks in the lower hall. Then they will be safe, too.

KITTY'S TRUNKS I

No one can steal them there. A front j

lawn is a rather conspicuous place for j

trunks. And what will the neighbors ?

say, too, if we leave the trunks on the *

lawn? Why should n't we put the \

trunks in the lower hall?'' \

"Well," said Kitty, "I can't afford .

it, that is why. Really, Mr. Fenelby, I can't afford to have those three i

trunks brought into the house."

"And yet," said Mr. Fenelby, with \

just the slightest hint of impatience, "you girls could afford to give the man a dollar not to take them in ! That is woman's logic!"

"Oh! a dollar!" said Kitty. "If it was only a matter of a dollar ! I hope you don't think, Mr. Fenelby, that I travel with only ten dollars' worth of baggage ! No, indeed ! I simply cannot afford to pay ten per cent, duty on what is in those trunks, and so I prefer to let them remain on the lawn. I wrote Laura that I expected to be treated as one of the family while I was visiting her, and if the Domestic Tariff is part of the way the family is treated I certainly expect to live up to it. Now, don't blame Laura, for she was not only willing to have the trunks come in without paying duty, but insisted that they should."

Mr. Fenelby looked very grave. He was in a perplexing situation.

He certainly did not wish to appear inhospitable, and yet Laura had had no right to say that the trunks could enter the house duty free. The only way such an unusual alteration in the Domestic Tariff could be made was by act of the Family Congress, and he very well knew that if once the matter of revising the tariff was taken up it was beyond the ken of man where it would end. He preferred to stand pat on the tariff as it had been originally adopted.

"I told her,'' said Kitty, "that she had no right to throw off the duty on my trunks, at all, and that I would n't have it, and I did n't."

"Well, Tom/' said Mrs, Fenelby, "you know perfectly well that we can't leave those trunks out on the lawn. It would not only be absolutely foolish to do that, but cruel to Kitty. A girl simply can't visit away from home without trunks, and it is absolutely necessary that Kitty should have her trunks."

" 'Necessities, ten per cent.,' " quoted Kitty.

"But, my dear," said Mr. Fenelby, softly, "we really can't break all our household rules just because Kitty has brought three trunks, can we? Kitty does not expect us to do that, and I think she looks at it in a very rational manner, I like the spirit she has evinced/'

**Very well, then/' said Mrs. Fenelby, "you must find some way to take care of those trunks, for we cannot leave them on the lawn."

"Why can't we take them to some neighbor's house?" asked Kitty, "I am sure some neighbor would be glad to store them for me for awhile. Are n't you on good terms with your neighbors, Laura?"

"The Rankins might take them," said Laura, thoughtfully. "They have that vacant room, you know, Tom. They might not mind letting us put them in there."

"I don't know the Rankins," said Kitty, *'but I am sure they are perfectly lovely people, and that they would not mind in the least/'

"I know they would n't," said Mr. Fenelby. "Rankin would be glad to do something of that sort to repay me for the number of times he has borrowed my lawn-mower. I will step over after dinner and ask him."

"Are you sure, very sure, that you do not mind, Kitty?" asked Mrs. Fenelby. "You will not feel hurt, or anything?'

"Oh, no!" said Kitty, lightly. "It will be a lark. I never in my life went visiting with three trunks, and then

KITTY'3 TRUNKS had them stored in another house. It will be quite like being shipwrecked on a desert island, to get along with one shirt-waist and one handkerchief."

"It will not be quite that bad, you know/' said Mr, Fenelby, with the air of a man stating a great discovery, * 'because, don't you see, you can open your trunks at the Rankins', and bring over just as many things as you think you can afford to pay on."

For some reason that Mr. Fenelby could not fathom Kitty laughed merrily at this, and then they all went in to dinner. It was a very good dinner, of the kind that Bridget could prepare when she was in the humor, and they sat rather longer over it than usual, and then Mr. Fenelby proposed that he should step over to the Rankins' and arrange about the storage of Kitty's trunks, and on thinking it over he decided that he had better step down to the station and see if he could not get a man to carry the trunks across the street and up the Rankins' stairs. As they filed out of the house upon the porch, Kitty suddenly decided that it was a beautiful evening for a little walk, and that nothing would please her so much as to walk to the station with Mr. Fenelby, if Laura would be one of the party, and after running up to see that Bobberts was all

"Never in the history of trunks was the act of unpacking done so quickly or so recklessly"

right, Laura said that she would go, and they started. As they were crossing the street to the Rankins' Kitty suddenly turned back.

"You two go ahead,'' she said. "The air will do you good, Laura. I have something I want to do," and she ran back.

She entered the house, and looked out of the window until she saw the Fenelbys go into the Rankins' and come out again, and saw them start to the station, but as soon as they were out of sight she dashed down the porch steps and threw open the lids of her trunks. Never in the history of trunks was the act of unpacking done so quickly or so recklessly. She dived into the masses of flufHness and emerged with great armf uls, and hurried them into the house, up the stairs, and into her closet, and was down again for another load. If she had been looting the trunks she could not have worked more hurriedly, or more energetically, and when the last armful had been carried up she slammed the lids and turned the keys, and sank in a graceful position on the lower porch step.