"You can't prove it by me. He drove up an hour ago with Mr. Jordan, and said he wanted to meet Sandra Pepys, and all that sort of thing." Two men rose from chairs as they went inside. "Hello Tarbox," said Jordan. "I've just been bringing together two celebrities. I've brought M'sieur Laurier out with me. M'sieur Laurier, let me present Mr. Tarbox, Mrs. Tarbox's husband." "Not Anton Laurier!" exclaimed Horace. "But, yes. I must come. I have to come. I have read the book of Madame, and I have been charmed"--he fumbled in his pocket--"ah I have read of you too. In this newspaper which I read to-day it has your name." He finally produced a clipping from a magazine. "Read it!" he said eagerly. "It has about you too." Horace's eye skipped down the page. "A distinct contribution to American dialect literature," it said. "No attempt at literary tone; the book derives its very quality from this fact, as did 'Huckleberry Finn.'" Horace's eyes caught a passage lower down; he became suddenly aghast--read on hurriedly: "Marcia Tarbox's connection with the stage is not only as a spectator but as the wife of a performer. She was married last year to Horace Tarbox, who every evening delights the children at the Hippodrome with his wondrous flying performance. It is said that the young couple have dubbed themselves Head and Shoulders, referring doubtless to the fact that Mrs. Tarbox supplies the literary and mental qualities, while the supple and agile shoulder of her husband contribute their share to the family fortunes. "Mrs. Tarbox seems to merit that much-abused title--'prodigy.' Only twenty---" Horace stopped reading, and with a very odd expression in his eyes gazed intently at Anton Laurier. "I want to advise you--" he began hoarsely. "What?" "About raps. Don't answer them! Let them alone--have a padded door." The Cut-Glass Bowl There was a rough stone age and a smooth stone age and a bronze age, and many years afterward a cut-glass age. In the cut-glass age, when young ladies had persuaded young men with long, curly mustaches to marry them, they sat down several months afterward and wrote thank-you notes for all sorts of cut-glass presents--punch-bowls, finger-bowls, dinner-glasses, wine-glasses, ice-cream dishes, bonbon dishes, decanters, and vases--for, though cut glass was nothing new in the nineties, it was then especially busy reflecting the dazzling light of fashion from the Back Bay to the fastnesses of the Middle West.