_Hazard_, looking in again: "Perfect fit, just as the Jew said, and the very color for Fountain." He vanishes, shutting the door behind him. VII MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN _Mrs. Fountain_: "How coarse! Well, my dear, I don't know where you picked up your bachelor friends. I hope this is the last of them." _Fountain_: "Hazard's the only one who has survived your rigorous treatment. But he always had a passion for cold shoulder, poor fellow. As bath-robes go, this isn't bad." He gets his arms into it, and walks up and down. "Heigh?" _Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, it is pretty good. But the worst of Christmas is that it rouses up all your old friends." _Fountain_: "They feel so abnormally good, confound them. I suppose poor old Hazard half killed himself looking this thing up and building the joke to go with it." _Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, take it off, now, and come help me with the children's presents. You're quite forgetting about them, and it'll be morning and you'll have the little wretches swarming in before you can turn round. Dear little souls! I can sympathize with their impatience, of course. But what are you going to do with these bath-robes? You can't wear _four_ bath-robes." _Fountain_: "I can change them every day. But there ought to be seven. This hood is rather a new wrinkle, though, isn't it? I suppose it's for a voyage, and you pull it up over your head when you come through the corridor back to your stateroom. We shall have to go to Europe, Lucy." _Mrs. Fountain_: "I would go to Asia, Africa, and Oceanica, to escape another Christmas. Now if there are any more bath-robes-- Come in, Maggie." VIII MAGGIE, THE FOUNTAINS _Maggie_, bringing in a bundle: "Something a District Messenger brought. Will you sign for it, ma'am?" _Mrs. Fountain_: "You sign, Clarence. If I know anything about the look and the feel of a bundle, this _is_ another bath-robe, but I shall soon see." While she is cutting the string and tearing the wrappings away, Fountain signs and Maggie goes. Mrs. Fountain shakes out the folds of the robe. "Well, upon my word, I should think there was conspiracy to insult you, Clarence. I should like to know who has had the effrontery-- What's on it?" _Fountain_, reading from the card which had fallen out of the garment to the floor: "'With Christmas greetings from Mrs. Arthur J. Gibby.'"