"I'll help you, Nora," volunteered Reddy. "I haven't yet forgiven your wayward husband for the unkind remarks he made about my hair on my wedding day."
"I don't remember them," retorted Hippy, unabashed. "I've made so many remarks at so many different times about those same flaming, crimson locks that it would take a long while to sort out the dates. But there's nothing like trying. Let me see. The first occasion on which I chanced to note——"
"Now see what you've done." David Nesbit fixed the unfortunate Reddy with a severe eye.
"I see," was Reddy's grim comment. Picking up the idle mandolin that he had hastily deposited on Jessica's lap when he made his vengeful dash upon Hippy, he strummed it lightly. "Why lug a mandolin along if no one intends to sing?" he asked pointedly, ignoring Hippy's disrespectful reminiscences.
"Oh, very well." Promptly foregoing the will to gather data concerning Reddy's too-oft maligned Titian locks, Hippy began a lively warbling which had nothing in common with the tinkling melody of the mandolin. As a result the patient instrument immediately ceased its complaining tinkle. Hippy, however, lilted on, undisturbed, for a matter of five seconds, when a chorus of threatening protests warned him to cease.
"Do be good," admonished Nora, laughing in spite of herself. "Either sing prettily or don't try to sing at all."
"Madam, it is not necessary for me to try to sing. Song and I are one. Let me give you an illustration. Name a ditty best suited to my voice and I will prove myself."
"I can't recall one," discouraged Nora.
"Silent singing would suit you best," grumbled Reddy. "You could make your lips do the deed without damaging any one else's ear drums."
"I'll try it," amiably agreed the noisy soloist. "Just watch me." He proceeded to indulge in a series of labial contortions that a dumb man would have envied, and which had a most hilarious effect upon those whom he had lately persecuted with raucous sound. Rudely requested to desist from even this newly discovered pastime, he subsided with a frantic signalling to the effect that he had actually been stricken dumb.