Peaches, my wife, acquired the amateur photography bug last week,
and it was really surprising how quickly she laid the foundation of
a domestic Rogue's Gallery.
She bought a camera and went after everybody and everything in the
neighborhood.
She took about eight million views of our country home before she
discovered that the camera wasn't loaded properly, which was tough
on Peaches but good for the bungalow.
Like everything else in this world picture pinching from still life
depends entirely on the point of view.
If your point of view is all right it's an easy matter to make a
four dollar dog-house look like the villa of a Wall Street broker
at Newport.
Ten minutes after my wife had brought the camera home she had me
set up as a statue all over the lawn, and she was snapping at me
like a Spitz doggie at a peddler.
I sat for two hundred and nineteen pictures that forenoon, so I
suppose if she snapped like a Spitz I must have looked like a
Setter.
Anyway, before I was through setting I felt like a hen, but when
she tried to coax me to climb up on a limb of a tree and stay there
till she got a picture of me looking like an owl, I swore softly in
three languages, fell over the back fence, and ran for my life.
When I rubbershoed it back that afternoon my wife was busy
developing her crimes.
The proper and up-to-date caper in connection with taking snap
shots these days is to buy a developing outfit and upset the
household from pit to dome while you are squeezing out pictures of
every dearly beloved friend 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"]