ne_ and _Evening Post_ right away."

I have never understood why Henriette greeted this observation with a
peal of silvery laughter that fairly made the welkin ring. All I know is
that it so irritated me that I left the room to keep from making a
retort that might seriously have disturbed our friendship. Later in the
day, Mrs. Van Raffles rang for me and I attended upon her orders.

"Bunny," said she, "I've made up my mind to it--I must have a Carnegie
library, that is all there is about it, and you must help. The
iron-master has already spent thirty-nine million dollars on that sort
of thing, and I don't see why if other people can get 'em we can't."

"Possibly because we are not a city, town, or hamlet," I suggested, for
I had been looking over the daily papers since my morning's talk with
the lady, and had observed just who had been the beneficiaries of Mr.
Carnegie's benefactions. "He don't give 'em to individuals, but to
communities."

"Of course not," she responded, quickly. "But what is to prevent our
becoming a municipality?"

My answer was an amazed silence, for frankly I could not for the life
of me guess how we were to do any such thing.

"It's the easiest thing in the world," she continued. "All you have to
do is to buy an abandoned farm on Long Island with a bleak sea-front,
divide it up into corner lots, advertise the lots for sale on the
instalment plan, elect your mayor, and Raffleshurst-by-the-Sea, swept by
ocean breezes, fifteen cents from the Battery, is a living, breathing
reality."

"By the jumping Disraeli, Henriette, but you are a marvel!" I cried,
with enthusiasm. "But," I added, my ardor cooling a little, "won't it
cost money?"

"About fifteen hundred dollars," said Henriette. "I can win that at
bridge in an hour."

"Well," said I, "you know you can command my services, Henriette. What
shall I do?"

"Organize the city," she replied. "Here is fifty dollars. That will do
for a starter. Go down to Long Island, buy the farm, put up a few signs
calling on people to own their own homes; advertise the place in big
capital letters in the Sunday papers as likely to be the port of the
future, consider yourself duly elected mayor, stop in at some photograph
shop in New York on your way back and get a few dozen pictures of street
scenes in Binghamton, Oberlin, Kalamazoo, and other well-populated
cities, and then come back here for further instructions. Meanwhile I
will work out the other detail