"Any news to-day?" asked my Father.
"News enough!" said the Old Doctor. He seemed pretty mad about that too!
"Such as what?" asked my Father.
"There's a Prince and Princess in town!" said the Old Doctor. "Or a Duch and Duchess!—Or a Fool and Fooless!—I don't care what you call 'em!—They've got some sort of a claim on the old Dun Voolees estate. Brook,—meadow,—blueberry——hillside,—popple grove,—everything! They've come way from Austria to prove it! Going to build a Tannery! Or a Fertilizer Factory! Or some other equally odoriferous industry! Fill the town with foreign laborers!—String a line of lowsy shacks clear from the Blacksmith Shop to the river!—Hope they choke!"
"Oh my dear—my dear!" said my Mother.
The Old Doctor looked a little funny.
"Oh I admit it's worth something," he said, "to have you call me your 'dear.'—But I'm mad I tell you clear through. And when you've got as much 'through' to you as I have, that's some mad!—W-hew!" he said. "When I think of our village,—our precious, clean, decent, simple little All-American village—turned into a cheap—racketty—crowd-you-off-the-sidewalk Saturday Night Hell Hole...?"
"Oh—Oh—OH!" cried my Mother.
"Quick! Get him some raspberry shrub," cried my Father.
"Maybe he'd like to play the Children's new Game!" cried my Mother.