"Then," Porter drawled, "the next thing would be to get the doctors in, for a pneumonia branch; and after that the undertakers would demand admission, and then the tombstone people. You're a bright young man, Warry. I heard you stringing that Englishman at the club the other day about your scheme for piping water from the Atlantic Ocean to irrigate the American desert, and he thought you meant it." "Then we'll all suffer," Miss Porter declared, "for he'll go home and put it in a book, and there'll be no end of it." Raridan was in gay spirits. He had come from a call on a young married couple who had just gone to housekeeping. He had met there a notoriously awkward young man, who moved through Clarkson houses leaving ruin in his wake. "There ought to be some way of insuring against Whitely," said Raridan, musingly. "Perhaps a social casualty company could be formed to protect people from his depredations. You know, Mr. Saxton, they've really had to cut him off from refreshments at parties,--he was always spilling salads on the most expensive gowns in town. And these poor young married things, with their wedding loot huddled about them in their little parlors! There is a delightful mathematical nicety in the way he sweeps a tea table with his coat tails. He never leaves enough for a sample. But this was the worst! You know that polar bear skin that Mamie Shepard got for a wedding present; well, it makes her house look like a menagerie. Whitely was backing out--a thing I've begged him never to try--and got mixed up with the head of that monster; kicked all the teeth out, started to fall, gathered in the hat rack, broke the glass out of it, and before Shepard could head him off, he pulled down the front door shade." "But Mr. Whitely sings beautifully," urged Miss Porter. "He'd have to," said Warry, "with those feet." "You needn't mind what Raridan says," Mr. Porter remarked. "He's very unreliable." "The office of social censor is always an ungrateful one," Raridan returned, dolefully. "But I really don't know what you'd do without me here." "I notice that you never give us a chance to try," said Mr. Porter, dryly. "That is the unkindest cut; and in the shadow of your own house, too." Saxton got up to go presently and Raridan rose with him, declaring that they had been terribly severe and that he could not be left alone with them. "I hope you'll overlook that little slip of mine," said Mr. Porter, as he shook hands with Saxton. "You'd better not tell Raridan about it. It would be terrible ammunition in his hands." "And we'll all do better next time," said Miss Porter; "so do come again to show that you don't treasure it against us." "I don't know that anything's happened," pleaded John, "except that I've had a remarkably good time." "I fear that's more generous than just; but the next time I hope the maid will do better."