these little dramatic episodes which you offer your guests, by way
of appetizer, are certainly unique. Last year an elevator stuck in
the shaft with half the company in it, and this year a highway
robbery, its daring punishment and its reckless repetition--what the
newspapers will call "A Triple Mystery" when it gets to them--and
both victims among our commensals! Really, I don't know what more
we could ask of you, unless it were the foot-padded footpad himself
as a commensal. If this sort of thing should become de rigueur in
society generally, I don't know what's to become of people who
haven't your invention.'

MRS. ROBERTS: 'Oh, it's all very well to make fun now, Dr. Lawton;
but if you had been here when they first came in--'

YOUNG MRS. BEMIS: 'Yes, indeed, I think so too, Mrs. Roberts. If
Mr. Bemis--Alfred, I mean--and papa hadn't been with me when you
came out there to prepare us, I don't know what I should have done.
I should certainly have died, or gone through the floor.' She looks
fondly up into the face of her husband for approval, where he stands
behind her chair, and furtively gives him her hand for pressure.'

YOUNG MR. BEMIS: 'Somebody ought to write to the Curwens--Mrs.
Curwen, that is--about it.'

MRS. BEMIS, taking away her hand: 'Oh yes, papa, DO write!'

LAWTON: 'I will, my dear. Even Mrs. Curwen, dazzling away in
another sphere--hemisphere--and surrounded by cardinals and all the
other celestial lights there at Rome, will be proud to exploit this
new evidence of American enterprise. I can fancy the effect she