BY ALAN DALE


There was a ring at the front door-bell. Letitia, wrought-up, nervously
clutched my arm. For a moment a sort of paralysis seized me. Then,
alertly as a young calf, I bounded toward the door, hope aroused, and
expectation keen. It was rather dark in the outside hall, and I could
not quite perceive the nature of our visitor. But I soon gladly realized
that it was something feminine, and as I held the door open, a thin,
small, soiled wisp of a woman glided in and smiled at me.

"_Talar ni svensk?_" she asked, but I had no idea what she meant. She
may have been impertinent, or even rude, or perhaps improper, but she
looked as though she might be a domestic, and I led her gently,
reverently, to Letitia in the drawing-room. I smiled back at her, in a
wild endeavor to be sympathetic. I would have anointed her, or bathed
her feet, or plied her with figs and dates, or have done anything that
any nationality craves as a welcome. As the front door closed I heaved a
sigh of relief. Here was probably the quintessence of five
advertisements. Out of the mountain crept a mouse, and quite a little
mouse, too!

"_Talar ni svensk?_" proved to be nothing more outrageous than "Do you
speak Swedish?" My astute little wife discovered this intuitively. I
left them together, my mental excuse being that women understand each
other and that a man is unnecessary, under the circumstances. I had
some misgivings on the subject of Letitia and _svensk_, but the
universal language of femininity is not without its uses. I devoutly
hoped that Letitia would be able to come to terms, as the mere idea of a