ted States for the preceding year.
He will be very warm from hurrying.

At 5:15 two members of the committee will stroll in, one of them saying
to the other: "--so the Irishman turns to the Jew and says: 'Well, I
knew your father before that!' Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! 'I knew your father
before that!'"

They will then seat themselves at one end of the committee-table, just
as another member comes hurrying in. Time 5:21.

One of the story-tellers being the Chairman, he will pound
half-heartedly on the table and say: "As some of us have to get away
early, I think that we had better begin now, although Mr. Entwhistle and
Dr. Pearly are not here."

"I met Dr. Pearly last night at the Vegetarian Club dinner," says one of
the members, "and he said that he might be a little late today but that
he would surely come."

"His wife has just had a very delicate throat operation, I understand,"
offers a committeeman who is drawing concentric circles on his pad of
paper.

"Bad weather for throat operations," says the Secretary.

"That's right," says the Chairman, looking through a pile of papers for
one which he has left at home. "But let's get down to business. At the
last meeting the question arose as to whether or not it was advisable to
continue having conductors punch the little hole at the bottom of rebate
slips. As you know, the slip says, 'Not redeemable if punched here.'
Now, someone brought up the point that it seems silly to give out a
rebate slip at all if there isn't going to be any rebate on it. A
sub-committee was appointed to go into the matter, and I would like to
ask Mr. Twing, the chairman, what he has to report."

Mr. Twing will clear his throat and start to speak, but will make only
an abortive sound. He will then clear his throat again.

"Mr. Chairman, the other members of the sub-committee and myself were
unable to get exactly the data on this that we wanted and I delegated
Mr. Entwhistle to dig up something which he said he had read recently in
the files of the _Scientific American._ But Mr. Entwhistle doesn't seem
to be here today, and so I am unable to report his findings. It was,
however, the sense of the meeting that the conductors should not."

[Illustration: "That's right," says the chairman.]

"Should not what?" inquires Dr. Pearly, who has just sneaked in,
knocking three hats to the floor while hanging up his coat.

Dr. Pearly is never answered, for the Chairman looks at his watch and
says: "I