"Certainly," said Mrs. Idiot.
"Well, my love," said the Idiot, with an affectionate glance, "to-day is the—ah—the twenty-eighth."
Mrs. Idiot drew a sigh of relief.
"My!" she cried, "what a blessing! I wonder how I got so mixed!"
"It's economy, perhaps," suggested the Idiot. "If you will insist on buying out-of-date diaries and last year's calendars at bargain-counters because they are cheap, I don't really see how you can expect to keep up with the times."
Mrs. Idiot laughed heartily. Her relief of mind was unmistakable.
"What would you have done, John, if this had really been the night?" she asked later.
"Oh, I don't know," said the Idiot. "I think I should have taken you to New York to dinner, and bluffed our guests into believing they had come up on the wrong night. It is very easy for a host to put his guests in the wrong if he wants to. I don't, but if I must, I must."
As it was, the family dinner that night was a great success in spite of the absence of the cook, because Mrs. Idiot, who is an expert with the chafing-dish, found several odds and ends in the late cook's domains, which, under her expert manipulation, became dishes which the Idiot said afterwards "remained long in the memory without proving too permanent a tax upon the digestion."