"Well, make it carloads," Helen assented. "That's better to my
purpose, more like a multiplication table, instead of addition. But it
must be about as dry as mathematics."

"Oh, I get you," Marion exclaimed delightedly. "You mean that it is
quite as remarkable for a coal operator, with carloads of coal and
soot weighing down his imagination all day, to come home in the
evening and spin off a lot of nonsense like a comedian as it is for a
mathematician to have written 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'."

"Precisely," answered Helen.

"Well, I don't know but you're right. Anyway, I wouldn't detract from
such a nice compliment paid to the dearest daddy on earth. Still,
after leaving the atmosphere of his carloads of coal he had
experienced the diversion of being held up."

"By two masked men with guns on a lonely highway," supplemented Helen.

"Yes."

"And later found that his driver had turned traitor and planned to
deliver him into the hands of the enemy."

"Yes."

"I don't see any diversion or inspiration in that sort of experience.
Many a man would have come home in a very depressed state of mind
after such an adventure. And yet he came home, found everybody scared