Then she would show what she could do! She would go—well, to a dance or to a house where many people had congregated to have a good time. She would move about, saying things, laughing, keeping everyone on tiptoes. What things her quick mind would make up to say! Words would become little sharp swords with which she played. How many pictures her mind had made of herself in the midst of such an assemblage. It was not her fault if she found herself the centre toward which all eyes looked and, in spite of the fact that she was the outstanding figure in any assemblage of people among whom she went, she would always remain modest. After all, she would not say things that would hurt people. Indeed she would not do that! Such a thing would not be necessary. It would all be very lovely. Several people would be talking and up she would come and for a moment she would listen, to catch the drift of what was being said, and then her own word would be said. Well it would startle people. She would have a new, a novel, a startling but attractive point of view on any subject that was brought up. Her mind was extraordinarily quick. It would attend to things. With her fancy thus filled with the thoughts of the possibilities of herself as a glowing social figure May turned toward her escort who, puzzled by her apparent indifference, was striving manfully to remember the funny things the Cleveland man had said at the dinner given for the K. of Ps. Many of the man’s stories could not be repeated to a lady—it had been what is called a stag dinner—but others could be. Of the ones that could be told anywhere—they were called parlor stories—he remembered one and launched into it. May pitied him. He forgot the point, could not remember where the story began and ended. “Well,” he began, “there was a man and woman on a train. It was on a train on the B. and O. No, I think the man said it was on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern. Perhaps they were riding on a train on the Pennsylvania Railroad. I have forgotten what the woman said to the man. It was about a dog another woman was trying to conceal in a basket. They do not allow dogs in passenger cars on railroads, you know. Something very funny happened. I thought I would die laughing when the man told about it.”