"Tell us, Blitzen," said Mildred, kneeling on the rug beside the small dog and shaking his tousled head; but Blitzen, as soon as he could free himself, withdrew in unwonted dignity. Evidently there was that within him to-night which could not brook flippancy.
"A live souvenir?" asked Clover, perplexed.
"Mr. Gorham can guess," remarked Miss Lovina, glancing again down the columns of her newspaper, and shaking in a comfortable silent laugh.
"I?" said Page; then, after a moment's cogitation, "You surely didn't bring home one of those chickens?"
"I did. In that cage, my dears, there is an electric chicken." Miss Berry looked over her spectacles impressively. "The same power that runs the inter-internal railroad and shines in the rainbow fountains, don't disdain to hatch a chicken. If you doubt it, there's the chicken."
She gestured toward the bird-cage.
"I brought it home in a box; and I said to myself that most everybody had an old cage, so I went up garret, and there I found that one. On Blitzen's account I thought best to use a cage to-night." Her gaze descended on the terrier, whose head descended beneath it.
"Blitzen," asked Jack with deliberate, stern solemnity, "what do you think of the chicken?"
Blitzen rose with a crushed air, and slowly, as one who would not attract attention, crept across the room and retired under a remote sofa.
A shout of laughter followed his unostentatious disappearance.