escaped her shrewd eyes how largely it advantaged her that people
should give her presents in order to show other people that some
people needn't think they could show off before other people without
having other people show that they could show off, too, as well as
other people could. The pyschology must be correct, for it is
incoherent.

Mrs. Budlong herself was never known to break any of the
commandments, but in her back parlor her neighbors made flitters of
the one against coveting thy neighbor's and-so-forth and so-on.

It was when Mr. and Mrs. County Road Supervisor Detwiller were
walking home from one of these occasions, that Mr. Detwiller was
saying: "Well, ain't Mizzes Budlong the niftiest little gift-getter
that ever held up a train? How on earth did We happen to get stung?"

"I don't know, Roscoe. It's one of those things you can't get out of
without getting out of town too. Here we've been and gone and
skimped our own children to buy something that would show up good in
Mrs. Budlong's back parlor, and when I laid eyes on it in all that
clutter--why, if it didn't look like something the cat brought in,
I'll eat it!"

Mr. Detwiller had only one consolation--and he grinned over it:

"Well, there's no use cryin' over spilt gifts. But did you see how
she stuck old Widower Clute for that Japanese porcelain vace--I
notice she called it vahs?"

"Porcelain?" sniffed Mrs. Detwiller. "Paper musshay!"