The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1905-05-21

Moving into new house is about
rs risky and uncertain a piece OF business
no getting n now wife and what Is
more, you can't any more tell In the
beginning how you are going to get along
with the new house than YOU can tell
about the new wife. All you can do
is TO risk the experiment and then re-
toice or lament afterwards IT takes
time to learn to love n new home and to
forgive It's ecccntricities which develop
in most marvellous degree as ac-
quaintancc progresses.
In the first place. for months after
you make a change your love VIII make
your Shehrs turn back to the shack from
which YOU have moved, and memory but
sanctifios the place you have deserted.
Days will come when you will feel that
the new abode Is unbcarabo and That
every roachbug and flea In the old abode
is a blessed adorable creature, with the
sweetest traits of characters.
II the new house Is a fabric of your
own fortile brain--that is to say, II the
plans were conceived and drawn by your
sclf--then YOU will have additional cause
to rage. for no man likes to see himself
proved a plum fool, or to have the fact
demonstrated In bricks and mortar and
plastering and wood. Furthermore long
after adjusting yourself to your now ha6l-
tation you will feel an irresistible incli-
nation to murder Your builder. In all
probability, your wrath will be due not
to the fact that he has deceived or
cheated YOU but because he has followed
his contract too literally. Blue prints,
like the prospectuses for business en-
tcrprises, are about the most delusive
things on earth. And "plans and specifi-
cations" In the earlier stages of the
game. seem to be about the most ver-
bose and uselessly minute things con-
ccivable, but when they are put In the
concrete, they appear to embody nothing
save the mere provisions for four bare
walls, q roof. packing room, for worth
less furniture, twelve clothes closets, and
possibly a pantry where YOUR wife may
store the damson preserves, branded
peaches and tomato catsup.
The nightmare incident to quitting the
old abode Is apt to last 1.-THE greater
part Of your life, but the process Of in
vading the new premises IS /. Yin
snortm experience whose every detail
is writ on ten dollar bills that disappear
from your pocket faster than tu'nip
salad goes down the gullet of husky
cook Under ordinary circumstances, 1t
may take a charge of dynamite to blast
money out of your pockethook, hs,r no
human creature can plant himself In
new habitation without feeling. tor the first
fortnight. that. financially. he is going to
the ''denintion bow-bows" about as
speedily as hot rolls out Of II shovel.
The fact that you have spent six months
in anticipating expenses and providing
beforehand for those Will the wispish
things knows as modern conVenicnces,
Simply means that You must spend six
months more in adding to them. or in.
removing things which prove altogether
useless. And It is during this period
Of travail that your contractor, who drops
around occa sionaly for the deferred pay
ments. Kisses ut you from his cienchel
teeth the awful words. 81 told YOU So"
Indeed 1t seems to be the mission OF
contractors to look placidly and silently
on while we poor fools fetter ourselves
for life with domciliary limitations. But
they loosen up when IT is too !ase 10
remedy defects. 1t has never been
proved positively whether or not ghosts,
wraiths and phnntoms of the past stalk
abroad in old. deserted house, but there
can be no doubt that the sprites when