of the canvas in ribbons, but four men lugged it up the steps and the
careful way they handled it made you think the Old Home House was a
receiving tomb and they was laying in the dear departed.

'Twas set down on the piazza and then the friends had a chance to
view the remains. The Duchess and "Irene dear" gurgled and gushed and
received congratulations. Eddie stood around and tried to look modest
as was possible under the circumstances. The Dowager sailed over, tilted
her nose up to the foretop, remarked "Humph"' through it and come about
and stood at the other end of the porch. "My daughter" follers in her
wake, observes "Humph!" likewise and makes for blue water. Milo comes
over and looks at Eddie.

"Well?" says Small. "What do you think of it?"

"Never mind what I think of IT," answers Thompson, through his teeth.
"Shall I tell you what I think of YOU?"

I thought for a minute that hostilities was going to begin, but they
didn't. The women was the real battleships in that fleet, the men wa'n't
nothing but transports. Milo and Eddie just glared at each other and
sheered off, and the "ginuwine Sheriton" was lugged into the sepulchre,
meaning the trunk-room aloft in the hotel.

And after that the cold around the thrones was so fierce we had to move
the thermometer, and we had to give the families separate tables in the
dining-room so's the milk wouldn't freeze. You see the pitcher set right
between 'em, and--Oh! I didn't expect you'd believe it.

The "antiquing" went on harder than ever. Every time the Thompsons