Late that afternoon I opened the outer door of the dining-room in response to the rap of strenuously applied knuckles.
A lad of about eleven years with the sardonic face of a satyr and diabolically bright eyes peered into the room.
“We’re going to have soup for dinner,” he announced, “and mother wants to borrow a soup plate for father to eat his out of.”
Silvia stared at him aghast. She seemed to feel something compelling in the boy’s personnel, however, and she went to the china closet and brought forth a soup plate which she handed to him without comment.
In silence we watched him run across the lawn, twirling the plate deftly above his head in juggler fashion.
The next day when we sat down to dinner our new young neighbor again appeared on our threshold.
“Halloa!” he called chummily. “We 14 are going to have soup again and we want a soup plate for father.”
“Where is the one I loaned you yesterday?” demanded Silvia in a tone far below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, while her features assumed a frigidity that would have congealed father’s favorite sustenance had it been in her vicinity.
“Oh, we broke that!” he casually and cheerfully explained.
With much reluctance Silvia bestowed another plate upon the young applicant.