II
IN WHICH THOMAS SNOBBE, ESQ., OF YONKERS, UNFOLDS A TALE
The second dinner of the Dreamers had been served, all but the coffee, when Mr. Billy Jones, of the Oracle, rapped upon the table with a dessert-spoon and called the members to order.
“Gentlemen,” said he, when all was quiet, “we have reached the crucial crisis of our club career. We have eaten the stuff of which our dreams were to be made, and from what I can gather from the reports of those who are now seated about this festal board—and I am delighted to note that the full membership of our organization is here represented—there is not a single one of you who is unprepared for the work we have in hand, and, as master of ceremonies, it becomes my pleasant duty to inform you that the hour has arrived at which it behooveth us to begin the narration of those tales which—of those tales which I am certain—yes, gentlemen, very certain—will cause the unlaid ghosts of those masters of the story-tellers’ art—”
“Is this a continued story Billy is giving us?” observed Tenafly Paterson.
“No,” replied Bedford Parke, with a laugh; “it is only a life sentence.”
“Get him to commute it!” ejaculated Hudson Rivers.
“Order, gentlemen, order!” cried the master of ceremonies, again rapping upon the table. “The members will kindly not interrupt the speaker. As I was saying, gentlemen,” he continued, “we are now to listen to the narration of tales which I am convinced will cause the unlaid ghosts of the past grand masters of the story-tellers’ art to gnash their spirit teeth with anguish for that they in life failed to realize the opportunities that were theirs in not having told the tales to which we are about to listen, and over which, when published, the leading living literary lights will writhe in jealousy.”
When the applause which greeted these remarks had subsided, Mr. Jones resumed: