A TWILIGHT IDYL
BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE
One summer evening, Mr. Ellis Henderson, a popular young man, went out walking with two of the sweetest girls in town. Mr. Henderson wore a little straw hat with a navy blue band, a cutaway coat, a pair of white trousers, a white vest, a buttonhole bouquet, and fifteen cents. The evening was very hot, and as they walked, they talked about the baseball match, the weather, and sunstrokes. By and by one of the young ladies gave a delicate little shriek.
"OO-oo! What a funny sign!"
"Ha—yes," said Mr. Henderson, in troubled tones, looking gently but resolutely at the wrong side of the street.
"How funny it is spelled; see, Ethel."
"Why," said Ethel, "it is spelled correctly. Isn't it, Mr. Henderson?"
"Hy—why—aw—why, yes, to be sure," said Mr. Henderson, staring at a window full of house-plants.
"Why, Mr. Henderson," said Elfrida, "how can you say so? Just see, 'i—c—e, ice, c—r double e—m, creem'; that's not the way to spell cream."
And Mr. Henderson, who was praying harder than he ever prayed before that an earthquake might come along and swallow up either himself or all the ice-cream parlors in the United States, looked up at the chimney of the house and said:
"That? Oh, yes, yes; of course, why certainly. How very much cooler it has grown within the past few minutes. That cool wave from Manitoba is nearing us once more."