"I shouldn't if I were you," Hare recommended. "If memory serves, it was hardly worth it. Why not, instead, permit me to tell the story of the seven fat men of Kilgore?" McTosh, of the gum-shoe tread, shuffled courses dextrously. An under-steward assisted in the presentation of the viands, another manipulated dishes in the hidden precincts of the pantry. The service was swift and noiseless, but not more so than the passage of time. The hands of the little clock fastened against the forward bulkhead already stood at quarter after three. Mary's eyes, which had been resting on the candidate, turned back to Varney, and they were shining. "Seriously, Mr. Varney," she said in a lowered voice--"how could any one possibly be buried in a town where Mr. Hare is?" "Mr. Hare?" She nodded. "Because he is so _alive_! Why just to live in the same town with him is an inspiration. To be friends with him--well, that is all you ever need to keep from feeling buried alive! He isn't listening, is he?" "No," said Varney, "he is, I believe, telling the story of the seven fat men of Kilgore." "If you wish to hand bouquets to Pinky for a while," called Mrs. Marne, aside, "I will see that you are not disturbed, Mary." "Thank you, Elsie, but it's your sisterly duty to listen to the story. Mr. Hare," she presently went on, to Varney, "had a great career ahead of him in New York--Judge Prentiss told me so--and he kicked it over without a quiver and came up here where there isn't any glitter or fireworks, but only plain hard work. Politics is only an incident with him. No one will ever understand all that he has done for Hunston, without any thought of return--working with all his heart and his head and his hands." "Ha! Ha!" said Peter down the table. "That reminds me--" "You have known him a long time, I suppose?" asked Varney. "Yes," she laughed, "but he has known me longer--ever since I was a very little girl. That is why he calls me by my name, which gives him a great moral advantage. I call him Mister because I didn't know him when he was a very little boy. I have figured it all out, and I couldn't have, because he was thirteen when I was born. Besides, you can't begin to know people till you have reached a certain age. Can you?" "Not to say know, I should think." "Say six," said Miss Carstairs. "That's liberal, I think. Well, he was nineteen _then_, and I never even saw him till seven years afterwards, anyway. That made him twenty-six, which was much too late. Now he says that I should call him by his name, but of course I'm not going to do it." "It is hard to change an old habit in a thing like that." "Oh, I don't mind the hardness of it. But whoever heard of calling a Mayor by his first name? Call a Mayor Pinky! The thought is ridiculous. Isn't it, Mr. Hare?" But Hare was engrossed with a conversation of his own, now turned upon economic lines.