They all recognized the gravity of the situation. Still, as Julia said, they felt better already. It was like having the doctor come: you knew the worst, and could make ready for it.
They did not discuss the statements much. They had discussed them too much in severalty. They did agree that they should be left to Felix to report upon the next evening. He was, so to speak, to post them, to strike out from each side the quantities which could be eliminated, and leave the equations so simplified that the eight might determine what they should do about it—indeed, what they could do about it.
The visitors put on their “things”—how strange that that word should once have meant “parliaments!”—kissed good-by so far as they were womanly, and went home. George Haliburton screwed down the gas, and they went to bed.
CHAPTER II
STRIKING THE BALANCE
The next night they went to see Warren at the Museum. That probably helped them. After the play they met by appointment at the Carters’. Felix read his
REPORT.
1. Number.—There are twenty-one reasons for congratulation, twenty-four for regret. But of the twenty-four, four are the same; namely, the cursed political prospect of the country. Counting that as one only, there are twenty-one on each side.
2. Evil.—The twenty-one evils may be classified thus: political, 1; social, 12; physical, 5; terrors, 3.
All the physical evils would be relieved by living in a temperate climate, instead of this abomination, which is not a climate, to which our ancestors were sold by the cupidity of the Dutch.
The political evil would be ended by leaving the jurisdiction of the United States.