MR. BAXTER'S EVENING CLOTHES
That evening, at about half-past seven o'clock, dinner being over and Mr. and Mrs. Baxter (parents of William) seated in the library, Mrs. Baxter said:
“I think it's about time for you to go and dress for your Emerson Club meeting, papa, if you intend to go.”
“Do I have to dress?” Mr. Baxter asked, plaintively.
“I think nearly all the men do, don't they?” she insisted.
“But I'm getting old enough not to have to, don't you think, mamma?” he urged, appealingly. “When a man's my age—”
“Nonsense!” she said. “Your figure is exactly like William's. It's the figure that really shows age first, and yours hasn't begun to.” And she added, briskly, “Go along like a good boy and get it ever!”
Mr. Baxter rose submissively and went upstairs to do as he was bid. But, after fifteen or twenty minutes, during which his footsteps had been audible in various parts of the house, he called down over the banisters:
“I can't find 'em.”
“Can't find what?”