Then Garabed tried to console Archag:
“I say, whatever got into you? I didn’t see what happened.”
“Well, if you were ticklish, and somebody began to scratch the soles of your feet with a pen-knife, I guess you would jump, just like me.”
“I wonder who could have played that trick on you?”
“I don’t know, and what good would it do if I did? The mischief is done.”
But now Aram had joined them: “Listen, Archag,” he said resolutely. “It’s all my fault, and I assure you on my honor I’m broken-hearted over it. You know how I love to play tricks. Well, when I saw you with your legs holding on to the chair like cork-screws, I couldn’t resist the temptation to make them change their position, but I never dreamed of causing such an accident. I let you come away first, so I might speak to Mrs. Mills, and I owned up to her. And now I have an idea: we’ll go and buy a pretty table-cover, you and I, and send it to her; then she will understand that we are doing what we can to make up for our stupidity.”
Archag clapped his hands:
“Yes, that’s a fine idea, and we’ll put on the outside: ‘From Aram and Archag, in memory of their awkwardness.’ I was very angry with you for a minute, but now I forgive you with all my heart; you just wanted to tease me, but as for me, I have been too awkward for words.”
He held out his hand to Aram, who gripped it again and again.
A few days after this, Mrs. Mills showed her husband a charming table-cover of white silk, embroidered with arabesques, and handed him a note.