"Oh, well!" said Uncle Chipperton, "you needn't feel bad about it. I didn't go, myself."
At this, they all opened their eyes as wide as the law allowed.
"No," he continued, "I didn't want to make any disturbance, or ill-feeling, and so I didn't go, and my wife and daughter didn't want to go without me, and so they didn't go, and I expect Will's father and mother didn't care to be on hand at a time when bad feeling might be shown, and so they didn't go. There was no one there but Will. He ate all of the dinner that was eaten. He went straight through it, from one end to the other. And there was no ill-feeling, no discord, no cloud of any kind. All perfectly harmonious, wasn't it, Will?"
"Perfectly," said I.
"I just wish I had known about it," said Rectus, a little sadly.
"And now, Mr. Colbert," said Uncle Chipperton, "I don't want this to happen again. There may be other reunions of this kind, and we may want to go. And there ought to be such reunions between families whose sons and daughter have been cast away together, on a life-raft, in the middle of the ocean."
"That's so," said Mrs. Colbert, warmly.
"I thought they were saved on a life-raft," said old Colbert, dryly. "And I didn't know it was in the middle of the ocean."
"Well, fix that as you please," said Uncle Chipperton. "What I want to propose is this: Let us settle our quarrel. Let's split our difference. Will you agree to divide that four inches of ground, and call it square? I'll pay for two inches."
"Do you mean you'll pay half the damages I've laid?" asked old Colbert.