Days Off

This is a short story book. 'A day off' said my Uncle Peter, setfling down in his chair before the open wood-fire, with that air of complacent obstinacy which spreads over faim when he is about to confess and expound his philosophy of life, — 'A day off is a day that a man takes to himself. 'You mean a day of luxurious solitude, ' I siud, 'a stolen sweet of time, which he carries away into some hidden comer to enjoy alone, — A little-Jack-Homer kind of a day. 'Not at all, ' said my Uncle Peter; 'solitude is a thing which a man hardly ever enjoys by himself. He may practise it from a sense of duty. Or he may take refuge in it from other than that are less tolerable. But nine times out of ten he will find that he can't get a really good day to himself unless he shares it with some one else; if he takes it alone, it will be a heavy day, a chain-and-ball day, — anything but a day off.