list?"

"Not I, my dear madam. Curls my brain up into bow-knots, I assure you.
Clever people, word-plays,--that sort of thing always floors me
completely. Delightful, you understand! I enjoy it immensely, if I may
be allowed to play the listener. Let us hear some more, hey?
'Alcibiades'--hum, ha! How did that go? Quite a ring to it, hey?"

"I have one," said Bell; "but it is a good deal like Mammy's Spanish
one. Still, perhaps it will pass. It is called 'An Elopement.' Arbitrary
barber, charming daughter, engaging foreigner, graceful, handsome,
insinuating. Jealously kept lady. Midnight nuptials; opposing parent.
Questing, raged savage tonsor,--'Ungrateful! Vamosed with Xenophon
Young? Zooks!'"

"Oh, but that is a beauty!" cried Hildegarde. "Where do you get your X's
and Z's? I cannot think of one."

"There aren't many," said Bell. "And I rather fear we have used them all
up. Try, though, Hilda, if you can make one. I am sure you can."

"Give me a few minutes. I am at work,--but, oh, I must have pencil and
paper. How do you keep them in order in your head?"

"_Habeo! Habeo!_" cried Gerald, who had had his head buried in a
sofa-pillow for the past few minutes. "Through all the flash of words I
have maintained the integrity of mine intellect." (This was lofty!)
"Hear, now, 'A Tale of Troy.' Agamemnon brutally called Diomed
'Elephant!' Fight! Great Hector, insolently jocular, kicked Lacedaemonian
Menelaus's nose. 'O Phoebus! Quit!' roared Stentor. Turning, Ulysses
valiantly waded Xanthus. 'Yield, zealots!'"

A general acclamation greeted Gerald's story as the best yet. But Bell
looked up with shining eyes.

"Strike, but hear me!" she cried. "Shall Smith yield to Harvard? Perish
the thought! Hear, gentles all, the tale of 'The Light of Persia.'
Antiochus, braggart chief, devastated Ecbatana; finding golden hoards,
invested Jericho. Median nobles, overcome, plead quarter! Rescuing,
springs through underbrush, victorious, wielding Xerxes's
yataghan,--Zoroaster."

"Hurrah!" cried both boys. "Good for you, Smith College! That is a
buster!"

"Boys!" said Mrs. Merryweather.

"Yes, Mater! We did not mean that. We meant 'that is an exploder!'"

"You are very impertinent boys!" said their mother. "Shall I send them
away, Mrs. Grahame?"

"Oh, please don't!" said that lady, laughing. "I am sure we have not had
all the stories yet. Phil, you have not given us one."

"Mine won't come right," said Phil, rather ruefully.