At this moment Jonah re-entered the parlor with an ample waiter, on which were piled the china, glass and cutlery, with which he hastened to set the table.
When he had left the room again Wynnette continued in a mysterious whisper:
“Papa, I have committed smugglery.”
“‘Smugglery,’ my dear. There’s no such word.”
“Well, then, there ought to be, and henceforth there is. I was born to enrich the language, and—to commit smugglery. And I am proud and delighted! But I should have been ever so much prouder and no end to be delighted if I had intended to commit. But, ah me! It was an accident. ‘Some are born great; some achieve greatness; and some have greatness thrust upon them,’ and others become great by accident. Such is my case.”
“You rattle-trap, what are you talking about?”
“Smuggling, papa! That parcel I brought to old Mr. Kirby contained a tin box of choice tobacco, and the duty is higher, and the excise law stringent, and we never paid a cent!”
Mr. Force looked aghast, and then burst into a laugh.
“How did it happen, Wynnette?” he inquired, when he had done laughing. “I did not know the thing was tobacco.”
“No more did I! I wish I had! But I didn’t. And the officer searched all our trunks, and all our bags, and I carried that parcel in my hand, and he never even looked at it! Oh! I am so proud of having smuggled that tobacco! I wish I had intended it! But, henceforth, I do intend it! I mean to smuggle every time I can get a chance—not for any profit to myself, but for the principle of the thing! The Lord never made the excise laws and so my conscience is not bound by them. And I never helped to make them, and so my honor is not bound by them. But you, papa, must keep them, because you have been a lawmaker.”