The Aristocrat of the Kitchen. 107 



of valise, with the eggs arranged so that when the little 

 ones are hatched they face each other in two rows, as in 

 the third figure of the lancers. This valise she carries 

 with her and never parts with it until all pip out. There 

 is not one case on record, I believe, where a female cock- 

 roach has lost this pre- 

 cious valise in a Monday- 

 morning bargain crush. 

 Many a human mother 

 has forgotten all about 

 her baby in its carriage Fig - Egg capsul f , f 



aniencana ; a, siJe ; b, end veuv. 



till she got home. I knew 



of a very comical incident once where the mother left her 

 baby outside the drygoods store and had a perfectly 

 lovely time shopping. When she came out her baby 

 was frozen stiff, dead as a hammer. I have always 

 thought that was a great joke on her. 



When Mamma Cockroach feels the little ones stirring 

 inside she helps them rip open the crinkled seam of the 

 vaJise and teaches them the first lesson of economy by 

 eating up the empty egg-case. This may be thought by 

 some to be incompatible with the high social standing I 

 have claimed for the cockroach. Not so. Nobody can 

 possibly be so sticking mean, so stingy, so hard at a 

 bargain as an aristocrat, that knows that his position is 

 assured. It is the $15 a week clerk that is anxious 

 people shall not think he is so poor he cannot fling his 

 money right and left. Everybody knows the multi- 

 millionaire has money, and so he can afford to live up to 

 his likings and have a piece of apple-pie and a glass of 

 milk for his lunch and smoke a two-for-five cigar after- 

 ward. Then, too, he is economical from lack of knowl- 

 edge. He has no idea of the difference between ten 

 cents and ten thousand dollars. They are both the same 



