Days Off, and Other Digressions

''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 corner to enjoy alone,—a little-Jack-Horner kind of a day?''