Sailing! sailing! over the griddle, me!
Scientists tell us that when a man is drowning every detail of his lifetime passes before him in the fraction of a second.
Well, that moving picture gag was worked on me, without the aid of a bathing suit.
When I awoke, Clara J. was saying, "Possibly it would look better if I went with you. Wait just a moment, till I get this apron off—there! come along!"
I arose, and with delightful unanimity the chair arose also, clinging like a passionate porusplaster to my pantaloons.
"Mercy'" exclaimed Clara J., "that little villain, Tacks, has been making molasses candy!"
"It strikes me," I said, trying hard to be calm, "that after making the candy he decided to make a monkey of me. Darn the blame thing, it won't let go! I suppose I've got to be a perpetual furniture mover the rest of my life!"
Just then Uncle Peter came bubbling into the kitchen, talking in short explosions like a bottle of vichy, and I collaborated with the chair in a hasty squatty-vous!
"Two women on the piazza," he fizzed; "been talking to them an hour and all I could get out of them was 'yes' and 'no.' Not bad looking, but profoundly dumb."
"Hush!" said Clara J., glancing uneasily at me and then back at
Uncle Peter, as she raised a warning finger to her lips.