"Or, as that is not very amusing, suppose we cap verses? I hear you know a great deal of poetry--Mr. Wolffert told me. I never knew any one with such a memory as his." I recognized the suggestion as a flag of truce. I bowed, and as, of course, "Mary had a little lamb," was the first thing that popped into my head with its hint of personal application, I foolishly quoted the first verse, intending her to make the personal application. She was prompt to continue it, with, I thought, a little sub-tone of mischief in her voice: "It followed her to school one day, Which was against the rule," she said demurely. There she stopped, so I took up the challenge. "Which made the children laugh and say 'A lamb's a little fool.'" It was a silly and inept ending, I knew as soon as I had finished--still, it conveyed my meaning. She paused a moment and evidently started to look at me, but as evidently she thought better of it. She, however, murmured, "I thought we would quote verses, not make them." I took this to be a confession that she was not able to make them, and I determined to show how much cleverer I was; so, without noticing the cut of the eye which told of her wavering, I launched out: "There was a young lady of fashion, Who, finding she'd made quite a mash on A certain young swain, Who built castles in Spain, Fell straight in a terrible passion." To this she responded with a promptness which surprised me: "A certain young lady of fashion, Had very good grounds for her passion, It sprang from the pain Of a terrible strain On her friendship, and thus laid the lash on." I felt that I must be equal to the situation, so I began rapidly: "I'm sure the young man was as guiltless As infant unborn and would wilt less If thrown in the fire Than under her ire----" "Than under her ire," I repeated to myself. "Than under the ire"--what the dickens will rhyme with "wilt less"? We had reached the dining-room by this time and I could see that she was waiting with a provoking expression of satisfaction on her face over my having stalled in my attempt at a rhyme. I placed her in her chair and, as I took my own seat, a rhyme came to me--a poor one, but yet a rhyme: "And since, Spanish castles he's built less," I said calmly as I seated myself, quite as if it had come easily. "I was wondering how you'd get out of that," she said with a little smile which dimpled her cheek beguilingly. "You know you might have said, "'And since, milk to weep o'er he's spilt less'; or even, "'And since, striped mosquitoes he's kilt less.' Either would have made quite as good a rhyme and sense, too." I did not dare let her see how true I thought this. It would never do to let her make fun of me. So I kept my serious air.