Well, I rounds up Jack and Jill, and after they've hugged Miss Gertie until her travelin' dress is fixed for a week at the cleaners', Pinckney leads us all into the front room. The urns was there on the mantel; but the kids don't even give 'em a look. "Come on, you young rascals!" says he, as desperate as if he was pleadin' guilty to blowin' up a safe. "Tell Miss Gertrude about Grandfather and Aunt Sabina." "Oh," says Jack, "they're out in the flower bed." "We fed 'em to the rose bushes," says Jill. "We didn't like to lose 'em," says Jack; "but Pat needed the ashes." "It's straight goods," says I; "I was there." And say, when Miss Gertrude hears the whole yarn about the urns, and the trouble they've made Pinckney, she stops laughin' and holds out one hand to him over Jill's shoulder. "You poor boy!" says she. "Didn't you ever read Omar's-- "I sometimes think that never blows so red The rose, as where some buried Caesar bled'?" Say, who was this duck Omar? And what's that got to do with fertilisin' flower beds with the pulverised relations of your landladies? I give it up. All I know is that Pinckney's had them jars refilled with A-1 wood ashes, that Aunt Mary managed to 'phone up a new set of help before mornin', and that when I left Pinckney and Miss Gertie and the twins was' strollin' about, holdin' hands and lookin' to be havin' the time of their lives. Domestic? Say, a clear Havana Punko, made in Connecticut, ain't in it with him. IX A LINE ON PEACOCK ALLEY What's the use of travelin', when there's more fun stayin' home? Scenery? Say, the scenery that suits me best is the kind they keep lit up all night. There's a lot of it between 14th-st. and the park. Folks? Why, you stand on the corner of 42d and Broadway long enough and you won't miss seein' many of 'em. They most all get here sooner or later. Now, look at what happens last evenin'. I was just leanin' up against the street door, real comfortable and satisfied after a good dinner, when Swifty Joe comes down from the Studio and says there's a party by the name of Merrity been callin' me up on the 'phone. "Merrity?" says I. "That sounds kind of joyous and familiar. Didn't he give any letters for the front of it?" "Nothin' but Hank," says Swifty. "Oh, yes," says I, gettin' the clue. "What did Hank have to say?" "Said he was a friend of yours, and if you didn't have nothin' better on the hook he'd like to see you around the Wisteria," says Swifty. With that I lets loose a snicker. Honest, I couldn't help it. "Ah, chee!" says Swifty. "Is it a string, or not? I might get a laugh out of this myself." "Yes, and then again you mightn't," says I. "Maybe it'd bring on nothin' but a brain storm. You wait until I find out if it's safe to tell you."