As I have already intimated, Huldah was a privileged servant. "They are unloading children!" explained Silvia, in a tone implying that Huldah's sarcastic implication would be infinitely more preferable. "The van seems to be overflowing with them--a perfect crowd. Do you suppose the house is to be used as an orphan asylum?" "I think not," I assured her as I counted the flock. Five children would seem like a crowd to Silvia. "Boys!" exclaimed Huldah tragically, as she joined us for a survey. "I'll see that they don't keep the grass off our lawn." Late that afternoon I opened the outer door of the dining-room in response to the rap of strenuously applied knuckles. A lad of about eleven years with the sardonic face of a satyr and diabolically bright eyes peered into the room. "We're going to have soup for dinner," he announced, "and mother wants to borrow a soup plate for father to eat his out of." Silvia stared at him aghast. She seemed to feel something compelling in the boy's personnel, however, and she went to the china closet and brought forth a soup plate which she handed to him without comment. In silence we watched him run across the lawn, twirling the plate deftly above his head in juggler fashion. The next day when we sat down to dinner our new young neighbor again appeared on our threshold. "Halloa!" he called chummily. "We are going to have soup again and we want a soup plate for father." "Where is the one I loaned you yesterday?" demanded Silvia in a tone far below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, while her features assumed a frigidity that would have congealed father's favorite sustenance had it been in her vicinity. "Oh, we broke that!" he casually and cheerfully explained. With much reluctance Silvia bestowed another plate upon the young applicant. "Wait!" I said as he started to leave, "don't you want the soup tureen, too, or the ladle and some soup spoons?" "No, thank you," he answered politely. "None of the rest of us like soup, so we dish father's up in the kitchen. He doesn't like soup particularly, but he eats it because it goes down quick and lets him have more time for work." This time as he sped homeward, he didn't spin the plate in air, but tried out a new plan of balancing it on a stick. "I think," I suggested gently, when our young neighbor was lost to our sorrowful sight, "that it might be well to invest in another dozen or so of soup plates. I will see about getting them at wholesale rates. Our supply will soon give out if our new neighbors continue to cultivate the soup and borrowing habit." "I will buy some at the five cent store," replied Silvia. "I think I had better call upon them tomorrow and see what manner of people they can be." When I came home the next day it was quite evident that she had called. "Well," I inquired, "what do they keep--a soup house?" "They are literary people, the highest of high-brows. Their name is Polydore, and the head of the house----"