"Yes, I'm always 'absurd,'" Mrs. Adams moaned. "All I can do
is cry, while your father sits upstairs, and his horn of
plenty----"

But Alice interrupted with a peal of desperate laughter. "Oh,
that 'horn of plenty!' Do come down to earth, mama. How can you
call a GLUE factory, that doesn't exist except in your mind, a
'horn of plenty'? Do let's be a little rational!"

"It COULD be a horn of plenty," the tearful Mrs, Adams insisted.
"It could! You don't understand a thing about it."

"Well, I'm willing," Alice said, with tired skepticism. "Make me
understand, then. Where'd you ever get the idea?"

Mrs. Adams withdrew her hands from the water, dried them on a
towel, and then wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. "Your father
could make a fortune if he wanted to," she said, quietly. "At
least, I don't say a fortune, but anyhow a great deal more than
he does make."

"Yes, I've heard that before, mama, and you think he could make
it out of a glue factory. What I'm asking is: How?"

"How? Why, by making glue and selling it. Don't you know how
bad most glue is when you try to mend anything? A good glue is
one of the rarest things there is; and it would just sell itself,
once it got started. Well, your father knows how to make as good
a glue as there is in the world."