h
tears--warm, emotional, Latin tears of joy--over the discovery of this
priceless, this glorious, this beatific black mud! Already the great
Vittoreo was at work upon the sample sent him, modeling a vase after
one of his own famous shapes of Etrusca. It would soon be completed,
he would have it fired, and then he would send it to his dear
friend and successful manager, so that he might himself judge how
inexpressibly more than perfect was the wonderful mud of Blakeville.

[Illustration: "How _ex_-quisite!"--"Bee-yewtiful!" chorused the
culture club]

Mr. Wallingford was himself transported to nearly as ecstatic heights
over the prospect as the redoubtable Vittoreo Matteo, and as a memento
of this auspicious day he begged to present the largest of these vases
to the Women's Culture Club, to be in the keeping of its charming
president. One of the smaller vases he begged to present to the
hostess of the afternoon in token of the delightful hour he had spent
in that house. The other he retained to present to a very gracious
matron, the hospitality of whose home he had already enjoyed, and with
whose eminent husband he had already held the most pleasant business
relations; whereat Mrs. Jonas Bubble fairly wriggled lest her
confusion might not be seen or correctly interpreted.

Close upon the frantic applause which followed these graceful
gifts, pale tea and pink wafers were served by the Misses Priestly,
Hispin, Moozer and Bubble, and the function was over except for the
fluttering. Inadvertently, almost apparently quite inadvertently, when
he went away, J. Rufus left behind him the crumpled C. O. D. bill
which he had held in his hand while talking. That night Blakeville,
from center to circumference, was talking of nothing but the prices
of Etruscan vases. Why, these prices were not only stupendous, they
were impossible--and yet there was the receipted bill! To think that
anybody would pay real money in such enormous dole for mere earthen
vases! It was preposterous; it was incredible--and yet there was the
bill! Visions of wealth never before grasped by the minds of the
citizens of Blakeville began to loom in the immediate horizon of every
man, woman and child, and over all these visions of wealth hovered the
beneficent figure of J. Rufus Wallingford.

On Sunday J. Rufus, in solemn black frock-coat and shiny top hat,
attended church. From church he went to the Bubble home, by the warm
invitation of Jonas, for chicken