A DAY OFF" said my Uncle Peter, settling down in his chair before the open wood-fire, with that air of complacent obstinacy which spreads over him 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 said, "a stolen sweet of time, which he carries away into some hidden comer to enjoy alone, - a little-Jack Horner 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 things 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.