know, that the stakes you're gambling for are absolutely 'on the
square.' I don't know exactly how to express it, but it seems somehow
as though only the very little things of Life are offered in open
packages--that all the big things come sealed very tight. You can poke
them a little and make a guess at the shape, and you can rattle them a
little and make a guess at the size, but you can't ever open them and
prove them--until the money is paid down and gone forever from your
hands. But goodness me!" she cried, brightening perceptibly; "if you
were to put an advertisement in the biggest newspaper in the biggest
city in the world, saying: 'Every person who has ever written an
indiscreet letter in his life is hereby invited to attend a
mass-meeting'--and if people would really go--you'd see the most
distinguished public gathering that you ever saw in your life! Bishops
and Judges and Statesmen and Beautiful Society Women and Little Old
White-Haired Mothers--everybody, in fact, who had ever had red blood
enough at least once in his life to write down in cold black and white
the one vital, quivering, questioning fact that happened to mean the
most to him at that moment! But your 'Honey' and your 'Dolly Girl' and
your 'Pink-Fingered Precious' nonsense! Why, it isn't real! Why, it
doesn't even _make sense_!"

Again the Youngish Girl's laughter rang out in light, joyous, utterly
superficial appreciation.

Even the serious Traveling Salesman succumbed at last.

"Oh, yes, I know it sounds comic," he acknowledged wryly. "Sounds like
something out of a summer vaudeville show or a cheap Sunday
supplement. But I don't suppose it sounded so specially blamed comic
to the widow. I reckon she found it plenty-heap indiscreet enough to