bout them. She was also refused admittance when she
called. On my way home I met that boy--that awful boy----"

She paused, evidently overcome by the consideration of his awfulness.

"He had been digging bait--"

Again she paused as if words were inadequate for her climax.

"Well," I encouraged.

"He was carrying his bait--horrid, wriggling angleworms--in our soup
plate!"

"Then it is not broken yet!" I exclaimed joyfully. "Let us hope it is
given an antiseptic bath before father's next indulgence in consomme.
After dinner I will go over and try my luck at paying my respects to
the soup savant."

"They won't let you in."

"In that case I shall follow their lead of setting aside all ceremony
and formality and admit myself, as their heir apparent does here."

After dinner and my twilight smoke, I went next door, first asking
Silvia if there was anything we needed that I could borrow, just to
show them there were no hard feelings.

My third vigorous ring brought results. A slipshod servant appeared
and reluctantly seated me in the hall. She read with seeming interest
the card I handed to her and then, pushing aside some mangy looking
portieres, vanished from view.

She evidently delivered my card, for I heard a woman's voice read my
name, "Mr. Lucien Wade."

After another short interval the slovenly servant returned and offered
me my card.

"She seen it," she assured me in answer to my look of surprise.

She again put the portieres between us and I was obliged to own myself
baffled in my efforts to break in. I was showing myself out when my
onward course was deflected by a troop of noisy children leaded by
the soup plate skirmisher, who was the oldest and apparently the
leader of the brood.

"Oh, halloa!" he greeted me with the air of an old acquaintance,
"didn't you see the folks?"

On my informing him that I had seen no one but the servant, he
exclaimed:

"Oh, that chicken wouldn't know enough to ask you in! Just follow us.
Mother wouldn't remember to come out."

I was loth to force my presence on mother, but by this time my
hospitable young friend had pulled the portieres so strenuously that
they parted from the pole, and I was presented willy nilly to the
collector of antiquities, who had the angular sharp-cut face and form
of a rocking horse. She was seated at a table strewn with books and
papers, writing at a rate of speed that convinced me she was in the
throes of an inspiration. I forebore