Heart failure for mine as I stumbled to my feet and caught the
interested expressions on the faces of Skinski and Dodo.

"Aunt Martha and I have been shopping, and we dropped in here for
luncheon," my wife rattled on, while I was slowly recovering.

"Of course we don't wish to be _de trop_," she added, glancing
curiously at the famous Skinski and his assistant in the
mind-reading tests.

"No, no, Peaches; certainly not!" I spluttered; "hadn't the
faintest idea you were coming in town to-day. Let me present
Bunch's Uncle Cornelius McGowan and his Aunt Flora from
Springfield--my wife and my mother-in-law!"

Skinski and Dodo were wise in a minute, and they never batted an
eye, but Bunch took the full count.

Of course he couldn't deny the relationship without giving himself
away, so he simply stood there and looked foolish.

"Have you been in the city very long?" my wife said most pleasantly
to Signor Petroskinski,

"No, Madam," he answered, with a most courtier-like bow; "we only
broke away from the cars this morning, and we bumped into nephew
quite by chance, didn't we, nephew?"

Bunch growled something that wouldn't sound well on the graphophone.