Merits, my friends, your careful observation.
Saturday, the busiest day of all,
From Cousin Thomas I received a call.”
Some lost couplets record the invitation to drive, and the demur on account of pies then baking in the oven; but this being overruled by masculine persuasiveness—
“Across the hall I gayly skipped,
And soon was for the cruise equipped.”
Then follows the drive, the arrival, and the attempt to cut the stern old cedar trunk with a dull saw,—
“Cousin Thomas worked with desperation,
Until he was in a profuse perspiration,”