l dentistry, and when, upon
occasion, he threw back his head to laugh, the roof of his mouth was his
own.

He smiled now, peering through gold-rimmed spectacles attached by a chain
to a wire-encircled left ear.

"Sit," he cried, "and let me serve you!"

Standing there with a diffidence which she could not crowd down, Mrs.
Coblenz smiled through closed lips that would pull at the corners.

"The idea, Mr. Haas--going to all that trouble!"

"'Trouble'! she says. After two hours' handshaking in a swallow-tail, a man
knows what real trouble is!"

She stirred around and around the cup, supping up spoonfuls gratefully.

"I'm sure much obliged. It touches the right spot."

He pressed her down to the chair, seating himself on the low edge of the
dais.

"Now you sit right there and rest your bones."

"But my mother, Mr. Haas. Before it's time for the ride home she must rest
in a quiet place."

"My car'll be here and waiting five minutes after I telephone."

"You--sure have been grand, Mr. Haas!"

"I shouldn't be grand yet to my--Let's see--what relation is it I am to
you?"

"Honest, you're a case, Mr. Haas--always making fun!"

"My poor dead sister's son marries your daughter. That makes you
my--nothing-in-law."

"Honest, Mr. Haas, if I was around you, I'd get fat laughing."

"I wish you was."

"Selene would have fits. 'Never get fat, mama,' she says, 'if you don't
want--'"

"I don't mean that."

"What?"

"I mean I wish you was around me."

She struck him then with her fan, but the color rose up into the mound of
her carefully piled hair.

"I always say I can see where Lester gets his comical ways. Like his uncle,
that boy keeps us all laughing."

"Gad! look at her blush! I know women your age would give fifty dollars a
blush to do it that way."

She was looking away again, shoulders heaving to silent laughter, the blush
still stinging.

"It's been so--so long, Mr. Haas, since I had compliments made to me. You
make me feel so--silly."

"I know it, you nice, fine woman, you; and it's a darn shame!"

"Mr.--Haas!"

"I mean it. I hate to see a fine woman not get her dues. Anyways, when
she's the finest woman of them all!"

"I--the woman that lives to see a day like this--her daughter the happiest
girl in the world, with the finest boy in the world--is getting her dues,
all right, Mr. Haas."

"She's a fine girl, but she ain't worth her mother's little finger-nail."

"Mr.--Haas!"

"No, sir