because of that thumb. With his large allowance, it was easy to
put flowers everywhere--the most expensive that the season
afforded. When he ordered them, he bought at the same time a
great bunch of orchids for Miss White. "I can't invite her," he
decided, reluctantly; "but her feelings won't be hurt if I send
her some flowers." As for the menu, he charged the things he
wanted to his mother's meager account at the grocery-store. When
he produced his list of delicacies, things unknown on that
office-dining-room table, the amazed grocer said to himself,
"Well, _at last_ I guess that trade is going to amount to
something! Why, damn it," he confided to his bookkeeper
afterward, "I been sendin' things up to that there house for
seventeen years, and the whole bill ain't amounted to shucks.
That woman could buy and sell me twenty times over. Twenty times?
A hundred times! And I give you my word she eats like a day-
laborer. Listen to this"--and he rattled off Blair's order.
"She'll fall down dead when she sees them things; she don't even
know how to spell 'em!"

Blair had never seen a table properly appointed for a dinner-
party; but Harris had recollections of more elaborate and elegant
days, a recollection, indeed, of one occasion when he had waited
at a policemen's ball; and he laid down the law so dogmatically
that Blair assented to every suggestion. The result was a
humorous compound of Harris's standards and Blair's aspirations;
but the boy, coming in to look at the table before the arrival of
his guests, was perfectly satisfied.

"It's fine, Harris, isn't it?" he said. "Now, light up all the
burners on both chandeliers. Harris, give a rub to that thistle