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that crosses your pathway.
My wife selected a spare room on the top floor where she could await
developments.
A half hour later ghostly noises; began to come from that room and
mysterious whisperings fell out of the window and bumped over the
lawn.

When I reached the front door I found that the gardener had left, the
waitress was leaving, the baby had discharged the nurses and the nurse
was telephoning for a policeman.
"Where is Mrs. Henry?" I asked Mary, the nurse.
"She is still developing," said Mary.
"What has she developed?" I inquired.
"Up to the present time she has developed the cook's temper and she
has developed the baby's appetite, and a couple of bill collectors
developed a pain in the neck when they couldn't see her; and if things
go on in this way I think this will soon develop into a foolish house!"
said Mary, the nurse.
A half hour later while I was hiding under the hammock on the front
porch, not daring to breathe above a whisper for fear I would get my
picture taken again, my wife rushed out exclaiming, "Oh, joy! Oh, joy!
John, I have developed two pictures!"
[Illustration: "Oh, joy! John, I have developed two pictures"]
I wish you could have seen the expression on Peaches' face.
In order to develop the films a picturesque assortment of drugs and
chemicals have to be used.
Well, my wife had used them.
A silent little stream of wood alcohol was trickling down over her left
ear into her Psyche knot, and on the end of her nose about six grains of
bichloride of potash was sending out signals of distress to some spirits
of turpentine which was burning on the top of her right eyebrow.
Something dark and lingering like iodine had given her chin the double
cross and her apron looked like the remnants of a porous plaster.
Her right hand had red, white, green, purple and magenta marks all

over it, and her left hand looked like the Fourth of July.
"John!" she yelled; "here it is! My goodness, I am so excited! See what
a fine picture of you I took!"
She handed me the picture, but all I could see was a wood-shed with
the door wide open.
"A good picture of the woodshed," I said; "but whose woodshed is it?"
"A wood-shed!" exclaimed my wife; "why, that is your face, John. And
where you think the door is open is only your mouth!"
I looked crestfallen and then I looked at the picture again, but my better
nature asserted itself and I made no attempt to strike this defenceless
woman.
Then she handed me another picture and said, "John, here is one I took
of you and little Peaches!"
Little Peaches is the name of our baby.
We call her Little Peaches because that's what she is.
I looked at the picture and then I said to big Peaches, "All I can see is
Theodore, our colored gardener, walking across lots with a sack of
flour on his back!"
"John, you are so stupid," said my wife. "How can you expect to see
what it is when you are holding the picture upside down?"
I turned the picture around, and then I was quite agreeably surprised.
"It's immense!" I shouted. "It's the real thing, all right! Why this is aces!
I suppose it is called 'Moonlight On Lake Champlain?' Did this one
come with the camera or did you draw it from memory?"
"The idea of such a thing," my wife snapped; "can't you see that you're
holding the picture the wrong way. Turn it around and you will see

yourself and Little Peaches!"
I gave the thing another turn. "Gee whiz!" I said, "now I have it! Oh,
the limit! You wished to surprise me with a picture of the sunset at
Governor's Island. How lovely it is. See, over here in this corner there's
a bunch of soldiers listening to what's cooking for supper, and over
here is the smoke from the gun that sets the sun--I like it!"
Then my wife grabbed the picture out of my hands and burst into
speech.
When the exercises were over I inquired casually, "Where, my dear,
where are the other 21,219 pictures you snapped to-day?"
"Only these two came out good because, don't you see, I'm an amateur
yet," was her come back.
Then she looked lovingly at the result of her days work and began to
peel some bicarbonate of magnesia off her knuckles with the nut
cracker.
"Only two out of 21,219--I think you ought to call it a long shot instead
of a snap shot," I whispered, after I had dodged behind a tree on the
lawn.
She went in the house without saying a