room behind us
but Eddie Small.

"Brown," says he to Peter T., "I want you to have a horse and buggy
harnessed up for me right off. Mrs. Small and I are going for a little
drive to--to--over to Orham," he says.

'Twas a mean, black night for a drive as fur as Orham and Peter looked
surprised. He started to say something, then swallered it down, and told
Eddie he'd see to the harnessing. When Small was out of sight, I says:

"You don't cal'late he heard what Milo was telling, do you, Peter?" says
I.

Peter T. shook his head and winked, first at Jonadab and then at me.

And the next day there was the dickens to pay because Eddie and the
Duchess had driven up to Rogers' the night afore and had bought the
davenport, refusal and all, for twenty dollars more'n Milo offered for
it.

Adoniram brought it down that forenoon and all hands and the cook was on
the hurricane deck to man the yards. 'Twas a wonder them boarders didn't
turn out the band and fire salutes. Such ohs and ahs! 'Twan't nothing
but a ratty old cripple of a sofy, with one leg carried away and most
of the canvas in ribbons, but four men lugged it up the steps and the
careful way they handled it made you think the Old Home House was a
receiving tomb and they was laying in the dear departed.

'Twas set down on the piazza and then the friends had a chance to
view the remains. The Duchess and "Irene dear" gurgled and gushed and
received congratulations. Eddie stood around and tried to look modest
as was possible under the circumstances. The Dowager sailed over, tilted
her nose up to the foretop, remarked "Humph"' through it and come about
and stood at the other end of the porch. "My daughter" follers in her
wake, observes "Humph!" likewise and makes for blue water. Milo comes
over and looks at Eddie.

"Well?" says Small. "What do you think of it?"

"Never mind what I think of IT," answers Thompson, through his teeth.
"Shall I tell you what I think of YOU?"

I thought for a minute that hostilities was going to begin, but they
didn't. The women was the real battleships in that fleet, the men wa'n't
nothing but transports. Milo and Eddie just glared at each other and
sheered off, and the "ginuwine Sheriton" was lugged into the sepulchre,
meaning the trunk-room aloft in the hotel.

And after that the cold around the thrones was so fierce we had to move
the thermometer, and we had to give the families separate tables in the
dining-room so's the milk wouldn