with browny-green silver spoons. I poured out what professed
to be cream, but proved very low-spirited milk, in which a few
disheartened strawberries appeared rari nantes. I looked at
them in dismay. Then curiosity smote me, and I counted them.
Just fifteen.

"Cent a piece," said Halicarnassus.

I was not thinking of the cent, but I had promised myself a
feast; and what is a feast, susceptible of enumeration?
Cleopatra was right. "That love"--and the same is true of
strawberries--"is beggarly which can be reckoned." Infinity
alone is glory.

"Perhaps the quality will atone for the quantity," said
Halicarnassus, scooping up at least half of his at one
"arm-sweep."

"How do they taste?" I asked.

"Rather coppery," he answered.

"It is the spoons!" I exclaimed, in a fright. "They are German
silver! You will be poisoned!" and knocked his out of his hand
with such instinctive, sudden violence that it flew to the
other side of the room, where an old gentleman sat over his
newspaper and dinner.

He started, dropped his newspaper, and looked around in a maze.
Halicarnassus behaved beautifully,--I will give him the credit