122 The Book of Bugs. 



with the legislature and the common council there is 

 only a bare living in it for you; that if people do not want 

 to buy gas of you there is no compulsion on them they 

 can sit in the dark; that you do your very best to make 

 the bills about what you think they ought to be, and 

 that a year ago last October a man let his bill run up 

 'way beyond his deposit and never paid you the differ- 

 ence it will avail you nothing. They will still believe 

 you a robber. Here is the money. Will you take it? ' 



No need for Fate to add, " Ponder well." I have al- 

 ready done all the pondering necessary. No! No! a 

 thousand times, No! Rather will I choose poverty and 

 the glad, free life of him that uses kerosene and notes 

 the ring the cheerful evening lamp has made upon the 

 nice clean tablecloth than such riches. 'Better to slop my 

 clothes up with the first pourings of a full five-gallon can 

 than to be harried into my grave before my time by un- 

 just suspicion that I raised the gas-bill from my greed for 

 gold. 



This is the greatest drawback to the gas business, and 

 it can never be overcome so long as the cowardly prac- 

 tice prevails of sending the women-folks to the gas-office 

 to complain. Almost any gauzy romance will satisfy the 

 men, but it is heart-breaking to give a beautiful expla-, 

 nation and at the end of it to hear the woman say: ' Well, 

 I think it's very funny. Why, we were all in the coun- 

 try, all of us but papa, and he went to bed in the dark 

 every night because he couldn't find the matches. I 

 think it's z'cry funny! ' 



The naphthalin drawback was considerable while it 

 lasted, for when coal was distilled this product crusted 

 on the inside of the mains and could hardly be got off 

 with hammer and cold chisel. In the mains, mind you, 

 and though the meters went grinding on the same as 



