"Thank you," said Lowboy, "Our beauty is due to contrast. We set each other off. He is tall and graceful, and I am short, and round like a ball. Some think me handsomer than he."
Hortense turned her back upon him.
"I'm out of patience with you," she said disgustedly.
Lowboy's mouth began to droop at the corners; his eyes closed and round tears, like marbles, began to roll down his cheeks. Highboy hastened to offer him a handkerchief.
"You musn't cry, you know," said Highboy, "or you'll warp yourself—maybe even stain your varnish."
"Then I'll abstain," said Lowboy, and was so pleased with his pun that he at once began to laugh.
Hortense, however, was still out of temper, quite unreasonably, because she couldn't really think of anything which any one should have done.
"Where were you, Coal and Ember?" she demanded severely.
"In the corner where you put us," Coal and Ember growled with one voice.
"Why didn't you do something?"