"The 'A.C.'!" said Mr. Billings. "Bless me, Eunice! how long it is since we have talked of that summer! I had almost forgotten that there ever was an A.C."
"Enos, could you ever forget Abel Mallory and the beer?—or that scene between Hollins and Shelldrake?—or" (here she blushed the least bit) "your own fit of candor?" And she laughed again, more heartily than ever.
"What a precious lot of fools, to be sure!" exclaimed her husband.
Mr. Johnson, meanwhile, though enjoying the cheerful humor of his hosts, was not a little puzzled with regard to its cause.
"What is the A.C.?" he ventured to ask.
Mr. and Mrs. Billings looked at each other, and smiled, without replying.
"Really, Ned," said the former, finally, "the answer to your question involves the whole story."
"Then why not tell him the whole story, Enos?" remarked his wife.
"You know I've never told it yet, and it's rather a hard thing to do, seeing that I'm one of the heroes of the farce,—for it wasn't even genteel comedy, Ned," said Mr. Billings. "However," he continued, "absurd as the story may seem, it's the only key to the change in my life, and I must run the risk of being laughed at."
"I'll help you through, Enos," said his wife, encouragingly; "and besides, my rôle in the farce was no better than yours. Let us resuscitate, for to-night only, the constitution of the A.C."