But the other twin busied himself with the post-mark.
"A. Malfi," he painfully deciphered....
"Say, Gramp', what's a Malfi?"
His brother remained engrossed with the embossed head of Medusa.
"Snakes for hair—turned 'em to stone—cut off her head," he chanted, in blissful retrospect.
Mr. Pawket, reaching across the table, seized this student by the collar. "Now, now, now! Whose head you cuttin' off?"
"Hern," explained this bloodthirsty twin. "She was a bad woman."
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" roared Mr. Pawket, with sudden severity. "None of that talk here! You mind your own business, young man. Don't you give us none of that gab." He turned to Mrs. Pawket: "What did I say about that new young feller that's come to teach school? He ain't here for no good—that's what I said!" Mr. Pawket studied the face on the envelope with a sort of curious horror, concluding, "Ef she's what you say she is, see to it that you don't take no more notice of her capers."
The twins now registered aggrieved expressions; they scratched curly heads with perturbed spoons. "Medusa's hist'ry." They roared it in hurt explanation.
After some discussion of the curious anatomical outline of the supposed honey-bee on the seal, Mrs. Pawket finally slit the envelope with a dinner-knife, and the twins, holding the letter between them, gave a dashing, if slightly incorrect, reading.