Woe to the person who undertakes to divert the lightning from meeting thunder-clouds; unless he be well insulated, he is sure to fall victim to his own well meant efforts.
"Winifred, my dear," sniffed Miss Standish, "you may remember that it was only this morning when I asked when we were going to Flying Point that you answered, 'Never, I hope—I detest picnics.'"
"Did I?" laughed Winifred; "well, it's true, and I cannot deny it."
"I must agree with you there," said Ben. "A [Pg 159] picnic is an occasion when all the food is picked and all the china nicked."
"A picnic," said Winifred, "is a place where you can accumulate an indigestion without incurring an obligation. In this, it is an advance upon a tea-party."
"Picnicking with people you know is a bore, Picnicking with people you don't know is a feat of endurance," echoed Flint.
"Professionally, I am in favor of them," threw in Dr. Cricket. "I often feel like saying, with the old Roman, 'This day's work shall breed prescriptions.'"
"Oh, come now!" said Brady, "you're all trying to be clever. This is only talk. I think a picnic is great fun, especially a tea-picnic, where you boil coffee, and light a camp-fire, and perch about on the rocks over the water. You would appreciate that last privilege, if you lived out on the prairies, where there is no water, and the rocks are all imported."
"Bully for you!" shouted Jimmy Anstice, who had been sitting by with his hands clasped over the knees of his stockings to conceal the holes from his sister's observant eye, but none the less eagerly following the conversation. "You're a peach; and why can't we go to-night?"
"That boy is all right," said Brady, smiling. [Pg 160] "He knows enough to take the current when it serves. Off with you, Jim, while the tide is out, and dig your basket of clams! Come on, Flint, and we will join them at the Point! How will you go, and when?"