"'But, Harold,' said Anita, 'that was a shameful way to treat our guest!'
"'That is what Baxter said to Isadore; but the cook excused himself by stating that all this happened in a cot, in a dear little cot, where everything was different from everything else in the world, and where he had tried to make you and me happy, and where he himself had been so happy, especially when he saw Mr. Rounders trying to eat chicken croquettes. He was also so pleased with the life at the cot that he is going to have one of his own when he goes back to Alsace, which will be shortly, as he has made enough to satisfy his wants, and he intends to retire there and be happy in a cot.'
"Anita reflected for a few moments, and then she said: 'I think life in a cot might be very happy indeed—for Isaac.'"
With this the Mistress of the House rose from her chair.
"Is that at all?" exclaimed her daughter. "There are several things I want to know."
"That is all," replied the story-teller. "Like the good King of Siam, I consider my already overtaxed subjects." And with this she went into the house.
"Do either of you suppose," remarked the Master of the House, "that that Anita woman gave the whole of that great estate to the widow and her two children? How much land do you think, John Gayther, was enclosed inside that chicken wire?"
"I have been calculating it in my head," replied the gardener, "and it must have been over a thousand acres. And for my part, sir, I don't believe it was all given to the widow. When Mr. Baxter came to attend to the papers I think he made over the cot and about seven acres of land, which was quite enough to be attended to by a half-grown boy."
"That is my opinion, too," said the Daughter of the House, "and I think that the opulent owner of that great estate made a deer-park of the rest of it, with reindeer, fallow deer, red deer, stags, and all sorts of deer, and not one of them able to jump over the wire."
"Ah, me!" said the captain, rising and folding his arms as he leaned his broad back against a pillar of the summer-house, "these great volcanoes of wealth, always in eruption, always squirting out town houses, country houses, butlers, chefs, under-chefs, diamonds, lady's-maids, horses, carriages, seaside gardens, thousand-acre poultry-yards, private sidewalks, and clouds of money which obscure the sun, daze my eyes and amaze my soul! John Gayther, I wish you would send me one of your turnip-hoers; I want him to take my second-best shoes to be mended."