MR. STANLOCK AMUSED.
"I understand now how a mathematician could write 'Alice in Wonderland'," Helen Nash remarked to Marion after Mr. Stanlock had withdrawn to the diningroom and his belated meal.
"How is that?" the hostess inquired, looking curiously at her friend.
"Why, your father, I suppose, has been thinking in terms of tons of coal all day—"
"Carloads," Marion corrected, with a toss of levity.
"Well, make it carloads," Helen assented. "That's better to my purpose, more like a multiplication table, instead of addition. But it must be about as dry as mathematics."
"Oh, I get you," Marion exclaimed delightedly. "You mean that it is quite as remarkable for a coal operator, with carloads of coal and soot weighing down his imagination all day, to come home in the evening and spin off a lot of nonsense like a comedian as it is for a mathematician to have written 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'."
"Precisely," answered Helen.
"Well, I don't know but you're right. Anyway, I wouldn't detract from such a nice compliment paid to the dearest daddy on earth. Still, after leaving the atmosphere of his carloads of coal he had experienced the diversion of being held up."
"By two masked men with guns on a lonely highway," supplemented Helen.