"Oh, my dear, I've just this minute heard you have guests--some of
your dear husband's relatives. Now they must come to me to dinner
to-morrow. Oh, it isn't the slightest trouble, I asSure you. I'm
giving a little party anyway. I won't take no for an answer."

And she wouldn't. Mrs. Stubblebine fairly perspired excuses, but
Mrs. Budlong finally grew so suspicious that she had to accept; or
leave the impression that the relatives were burglars or
counterfeiters in hiding. And they were not--they were pitifully
honest.

The result was even worse than she feared. Mr. Stubblebine's cousin
was so shy that he never said a word except when it was pulled out of
him, and then he said, "Yes, ma'am"!

In Carthage when you are at a dinner party and you don't quite catch
the last remark, you don't snap "What?" or "How?" or "Wha' jew say?"
Whatever your home habits may be, at a dinner party or before
comp'ny, you raise your eyebrows gracefully and murmur, "I beg your
pardon."

But Mr. Stubblebine's rural cousin grunted "Huh?"--like an Indian
chief trying to scare a white general. And he was perfectly frank
about the intimate processes of mastication.

And when he dropped a batch of scalloped oysters into his watch
pocket he solemnly fished them-out with a souvenir after-dinner
coffee spoon having the Statue of Liberty for a handle and Brooklyn
Bridge in the bowl.