"Gracious!" said Gertrude. "Don't you suppose I would make rhymes if I could? It's really a dreadful thing to be the only prose member of a large family. But Jack comforts me; you can't make them either, can you, Jack?"
"Not to save my life!" said Jack. "Never could see how they do it."
"But you can set them to music!" said Gertrude. "That is the delightful thing about you."
"And you can illustrate them! That is one of the many delightful things about you!" said Jack, with a low bow.
"'They built it up for forty miles,
With mutual bows and pleasing smiles!'"
quoted Gerald. "A truce to this badinage! Compliment, unless paid to myself, wearies me. We go, then, in canoes?"
"In canoes!" replied the others in chorus.
"'Tis well! Any special stunts in the way of arrangement?"
"Oh!" said Jack, "in plain prose—Bell, will you come with me? It's our turn to get supper, isn't it? and I have an idea—just a little one—which we can talk over while we are getting it."
"Oh, guard it, guard it tenderly,
Thy one idea—thy first!"