"Society in Clarkson is easily classified," said Raridan readily, as though he had often given thought to this subject. "There are three classes of homes in this town, namely, those in which no servants are kept, those in which two are kept, and those in which the maids wear caps."
"Warry is going from bad to worse," declared Mrs. Whipple. "I'm sure he could give in advance the menu of any dinner he's asked to."
"A tax on the memory and not on the imagination," retorted Warry.
Miss Warren was asking Mr. Porter's opinion of local political conditions which were just then attracting wide-spread attention. Mr. Porter was expressing his distrust of a leader who had leaped into fame by a violent arraignment of the rich.
"It wouldn't be so terribly hard for us all to get rich," said Warry. "I sometimes marvel at the squalor about us. All that a man need do is to concentrate his attention on one thing, and if he is capable of earning a dollar a day he can just as easily earn ten thousand a year. Why"—he continued earnestly, "I knew a fellow in Peoria, who devised a scheme for building duplicates of some of the architectural wonders of the Old World in American cities. His plan was to send out a million postal cards inviting a dollar apiece from a million people. Almost anybody can give away a dollar and not miss it."
"How did the scheme work?" asked Mr. Porter.
"It wasn't tested," answered Warry. "The doctors in the sanitarium wouldn't let him out long enough to mail his postal cards."
General Whipple persuaded Miss Marshall to tell a negro story, which she did delightfully, while the table listened. Southerners are, after all, the most natural talkers we have and the only ones who can talk freely of themselves without offense. Her speech was musical, and she told her story with a nice sense of its dramatic quality. At the climax, after the laughter had abated, she asked, with an air of surprise at their pleasure in her tale:
"Didn't you all ever hear that story before?" She was guiltless of final r's, and her drawl was delicious.
"Oh, Miss Marshall! I knew you'd say it!" Raridan appealed to the others to be sure of witnesses.