"I thought they would be nice for us to talk about. I read about them in the Encyclopedia so I could. The 'Advice to Young Ladies' said at a dinner you must always have something to talk about."
But this "member of the other sex next whom she was seated at the festive board" was not at all affected by her attempt to make the evening pleasant as Arethusa had been led by the little book to believe he would be; for after a momentary stare, he began to laugh.
He went through all the gamut of mirth. He gurgled. He giggled. He shrieked. He roared. And he even pounded on the table.
"Oh, but this is rich!" he gasped. "My word! But this is rich! It's the very richest thing I ever heard!"
His unseemly merriment attracted the attention of nearly everybody around them.
Arethusa was rather startled by his laughter at first, and then she was infuriated; for she realized that it was laughter directed straight at her. Timothy could have told Mr. Watts that it was very unsafe to laugh at Arethusa; that she hated nothing in the world so much as to be laughed at. Her eyes darkened with anger, and the mirthful one was given the full battery of their wrathful blazing.
But he did not even pause. He laughed on and on, uncontrollably.
So she reached over and pinched him with all the power of strong young fingers on the very fleshiest part of his arm.
His laughter stopped abruptly. "Say," he exclaimed, "that hurt like fury!"
"I meant it to hurt!" breathed Arethusa, and she turned as far away from him as was possible, owing to the fact that their chairs were so close together.