little left.''

Presbury was shaking so violently that his head and
arms waggled like a jumping-jack's. He wrapped his
elegant white fingers about the arms of his chair to
steady himself. In a suffocated voice he said: ``Do
you mean to say that you have only seven thousand
dollars in the world?''

``Only half that,'' corrected she. ``Oh, dear, how
my head aches! Less than half that, for there are some
debts.''

She was impatient for the explosion; the agony of
her feet and head needed outlet and relief. But he
disappointed her. That was one of the situations in which
one appeals in vain to the resources of language. He
shrank and sank back in his chair, his jaw dropped,
and he vented a strange, imbecile cackling laugh. It
was not an expression of philosophic mirth, of sense
of the grotesqueness of an anti-climax. It was not an
expression of any emotion whatever. It was simply a
signal from a mind temporarily dethroned.

``What are you laughing at?'' she said sharply.

His answer was a repetition of the idiotic sound.

``What's the matter with you?'' demanded she.
``Please close your mouth.''