to crack, and then when you beat
on it you get nothing but a dull stodgy sound. I feel that there are
times when my ebullience, my wealth of genteel diablerie, my flow of
_jeux d'esprit_ astonish even myself, but those times are never the
ones when my hostess says, in effect: 'Charlie, you can be such an
awful idiot when you want to that I wish you'd be one now--go on,
there's a dear!'--which was substantially what you said to me. I don't
mind telling you that it's very upsetting."

"Oh, I'm awfully sorry," Miss Maitland replied. "I didn't mean to. I
should be simply heart-broken if your spring of divertissement should
ever run dry--especially if you held me in any way responsible.
Charlie serious! Good heavens! And yet, on second thought, would it
not have a certain piquant lure, gained from its utter strangeness,
which would be simply overwhelming? Try it and see. No audience was
ever more expectant."

Wilkinson's gloom melted in meditation.

"Do you know," he said thoughtfully, "that there has never been in your
attitude toward me the regard and genuine respect--I may almost say the
reverence--that I could wish to see there. If it were not such a
perfectly horrible thing to say, I should say that you do not
understand me. As it chances--though you would be surprised to learn
it--there is at this moment a mighty problem working out, or trying to
work out, its solution in my brain. You tell me to be serious, and
since I want the advice of every one, including those whose advice is
of problematic value, I will be. And who knows but when you see me
engaged, or about to engage, in practical, cosmic matters, swinging
them with a gigantic intellectual force, your veneration for me may
develop with remarkable rapidity?"

"Who knows, indeed? Go ahead--you have my curiosity beautifully
sharpened, at any rate, before a word is said."

Wilkinson cleared his throat and bent forward with an air of
concentration, meant to indicate that he was marshaling his ideas.
Then he said in a hushed and confidential tone: "What do you know of
trolley systems?"

Miss Maitland looked at him in surprise.

"Goodness, Charlie!" she said; "I know there are such things--the term
is perfectly familiar. I have always supposed that trolley cars were
part of trolley systems, but I should hesitate to go very far beyond
that statement."

The young man nodded gravely.

"You are right. Your information, so far as it extends, is ab