"There aren't many," said Bell. "And I rather fear we have used them all up. Try, though, Hilda, if you can make one. I am sure you can."
"Give me a few minutes. I am at work,—but, oh, I must have pencil and paper. How do you keep them in order in your head?"
"Habeo! Habeo!" cried Gerald, who had had his head buried in a sofa-pillow for the past few minutes. "Through all the flash of words I have maintained the integrity of mine intellect." (This was lofty!) "Hear, now, 'A Tale of Troy.' Agamemnon brutally called Diomed 'Elephant!' Fight! Great Hector, insolently jocular, kicked Lacedæmonian Menelaus's nose. 'O Phœbus! Quit!' roared Stentor. Turning, Ulysses valiantly waded Xanthus. 'Yield, zealots!'"
A general acclamation greeted Gerald's story as the best yet. But Bell looked up with shining eyes.
"Strike, but hear me!" she cried. "Shall Smith yield to Harvard? Perish the thought! Hear, gentles all, the tale of 'The Light of Persia.' Antiochus, braggart chief, devastated Ecbatana; finding golden hoards, invested Jericho. Median nobles, overcome, plead quarter! Rescuing, springs through underbrush, victorious, wielding Xerxes's yataghan,—Zoroaster."
"Hurrah!" cried both boys. "Good for you, Smith College! That is a buster!"
"Boys!" said Mrs. Merryweather.
"Yes, Mater! We did not mean that. We meant 'that is an exploder!'"
"You are very impertinent boys!" said their mother. "Shall I send them away, Mrs. Grahame?"
"Oh, please don't!" said that lady, laughing. "I am sure we have not had all the stories yet. Phil, you have not given us one."