“I refuse to think of it; or, if I do think of it, I refuse to be dazzled by his magnificence. I want to see the Shawenegan, not a picnic party drinking.
“You wrong them, really you do, Miss Sommerton, believe me. You have got your dates mixed. It is the champagne party that goes to-day. The beer crowd is not due until to-morrow.”
“The principle is the same.”
“The price of the refreshment is not. I speak as a man of bitter experience. Let’s see. If recollection holds her throne, I think there was a young lady from New England—I forget the name of the town at the moment—who took a lunch with her the last time she went to the Shawenegan. I merely give this as my impression, you know. I am open to contradiction.”
“Certainly, I took a lunch. I always do. I would to-day if I were going up there, and Mrs. Mason would give me some sandwiches. You would give me a lunch, wouldn’t you, dear?”
“I’ll tell them to get it ready now, if you will only stay,” replied that lady, on being appealed to.
“No, it isn’t the lunch I object to. I object to people going there merely for the lunch. I go for the scenery; the lunch is incidental.”
“When you get the deed of the falls, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” put in Mason. “We will have a band of trained Indians stationed at the landing, and they will allow no one to disembark who does not express himself in sufficiently ecstatic terms about the great cataract. You will draw up a set of adjectives, which I will give to the Indians, instructing them to allow no one to land who does not use at least three out of five of them in referring to the falls. People whose eloquent appreciation does not reach the required altitude will have to stay there till it does, that’s all. We will treat them as we do our juries—starve them into a verdict, and the right verdict at that.”
“Don’t mind him, Eva. He is just trying to exasperate you. Think of what I have to put up with. He goes on like that all the time,” said Mrs. Mason.
“Really, my dear, your flattery confuses me. You can’t persuade any one that I keep up this brilliancy in the privacy of my own house. It is only turned on for company.”