surprise. Her eyes seemed to grow even larger than the lenses of her
spectacles.

"Why, you see--er--I'm figuring on a little more insurance," he
stammered.

"What has my weight to do with it?"

"It isn't life insurance," he made haste to explain. A bright idea
struck him. "It is fire insurance, my dear."

"I don't see what my--"

"Of course you don't," he interrupted genially. "It's this way. The
fire insurance companies are getting absurdly finicky about the risks.
Now they insist on knowing the weight of every inmate of the houses
they insure. Has something to do with the displacement of oxygen, I
believe. Your mother and I--and the servants, too--expect to be
weighed to-night."

"Oh," she said, and resumed her reading.

He waited for a while, fumbling nervously with his watch chain.

"By the way, my dear," he said, "what have you been doing to that
bully chap, Eddie Ten Eyck?"

"Doing to him? What do you mean?"

"Just what I say."