Clarence and
Phil kindly volunteered to "shunt the dishes" into the kitchen after the
repast was concluded; and they gathered round the fire to play "twenty
questions" and "stage-coach," and all manner of what Clover called
"lead-pencil games,"--"crambo" and "criticism" and "anagrams" and
"consequences." There was immense laughter over some of these, as, for
instance, when Dr. Hope was reported as having met Mrs. Watson in the
North Cheyenne Canyon, and he said that knowledge is power; and she, that
when larks flew round ready roasted poor folks could stick a fork in; and
the consequence was that they eloped together to a Cannibal Island where
each suffered a process of disillusionation, and the world said it was the
natural result of osculation. This last sentence was Phil's, and I fear he
had peeped a little, or his context would not have been so apropos; but
altogether the "cream-toast swarry," as he called it, was a pronounced
success.
It was not long after this that a mysterious little cloud of difference
seemed to fall on Thurber Wade. He ceased to call at No. 13, or to bring
flowers from his mother; and by-and-by it was learned that he had started
for a visit to the East. No one knew what had caused these phenomena,
though some people may have suspected. Later it was announced that he was
in Chicago and very attentive to a pretty Miss Somebody whose father had
made a great deal of money in Standard oil.
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