stand on their tails and beg.”
“Oh, will they learn to do that? And what else can we teach them?”
“Oh, anything acrobatic; trapeze work and that. But they’re sleepy now; you fed them too much for just an afternoon tea. Let’s leave them to their nap, and train them after they wake up.”
“All right; let’s sit down and talk seriously.”
“Patty, you’re always ready to talk seriously of late. That’s why I brought you some Nonsense Fish, to lighten your mood a little.”
“Don’t you worry about my mood, Ken; it’s light enough. But I want you to help me earn my living for a week. Will you?”
“That I will not! I’ll be no party to your foolishness.”
“Now, Ken,” went on Patty, for she knew his “bark was worse than his bite,” “I don’t want you to do anything much. But, in your law office, where you’re studying, aren’t there some papers I can copy, or something like that?”
“Patty, you’re a back number. That ‘copying’ that you mean is all out of date. In these days of typewriters and manifold thigamajigs, we lawyers don’t have much copying done by hand. Except, perhaps, engrossing. Can you do that?”
“How prettily you say ‘we lawyers,’” teased Patty.
“Of course I do. I’m getting in practice against the time it’ll be true. But if you really want to copy, buy a nice Spencerian Copy-book, and fill up its pages. It’ll be about as valuable as any other work of the sort.”
“Ken, you’re horrid. So unsympathetic.”
“I’m crool only to be kind! You must know, Patty, that copying is out of the question.”
“Well, never mind then; let’s talk of something else.”
“‘Let’s sit upon the ground and tell strange stories of the death of kings.’”
“Oh, Ken, that reminds me. You know my crystal ball?”
“I do indeed; I selected it with utmost care.”
“Yes, it’s a gem. Perfectly flawless. Well, I’ll get it, and see if we can see things in it.”
Patty ran for her crystal, and returning to the library held it up to the fading sunlight, and tried to look into it.
“That isn’t the way, Patty; you have to lay it on black velvet, or something dark.”
“Oh, do you? Well, here’s a dark mat on this table. Try that.”
They gazed intently into the ball, and though they could see nothing, Patty felt a weird sense of uncanniness.
Ken laughed when she declared this, and said:
“Nothing in the world but suggestion. You think a Japanese crystal ought to make you feel supernatural, and so you imagine it does. But it doesn’t any such nonsense. Now, I’ll tell you why I like them. Only because they’re so flawlessly perfect. In shape, colour, texture,—if you can call it texture,—but I mean material or substance. There isn’t an attribute that they possess, except in perfection. That’s a great thing, Patty; and you can’t say it of anything else.”
“The stars,” said Patty, trying to look wise.
“Oh, pshaw! I mean things made by man.”
“Great pictures,” she suggested.
“Their perfection is a matter of opinion. One man deems a picture perfect, another man does not. But a crystal ball is indubitably perfect.”
“Indubitably is an awful big word,” said Patty. “I’m afraid of it.”
“Never mind,” said Kenneth, kindly, “I won’t let it hurt you.”
Then the doorbell rang, and in a moment in came Elise and Roger.
“Hello, Ken,” said Elise. “We came for Patty to go skating. Will you go, too?”
“I can’t go to-day,” said Patty, “I’m too tired. And it’s too late, anyway. You stay here, and we’ll have tea.”
“All right, I don’t care,” said Elise, taking off her furs.
The quartette gathered round the library fire, and Jane brought in the tea things.
Patty made tea very prettily, for she excelled in domestic accomplishments, and as she handed Kenneth his cup, she said, roguishly, “There’s a perfect cup of tea, I can assure you.”
“Perfect tea, all right,” returned Ken, sipping it, “but a cup of tea can’t be a perfect thing, as it hasn’t complete symmetry of form.”
“What are you two talking about?” demanded Elise, who didn’t want Ken and Patty to have secrets from which she was excluded.
“Speaking of crystal balls,” said Patty, “I’ll show you one, Elise; a big one, too! Get Darby and Juliet, won’t you please, Ken?”
Kenneth obligingly brought the glass globe in from the dining-room, where they had left the goldfish to be by themselves.
“How jolly!” cried Elise. “And what lovely goldfish! These are the real Japanese ones, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” said Patty, smiling at Ken. “Being Japanese, they’re perfect of their kind. Make them stand on their tails and beg, Kenneth.”
“Oh, will they do that?” said Elise.
“Only on Wednesdays and Saturdays,” said Kenneth, gravely. “And on Fridays they sing. To-day is their rest day.”
“They look morbid,” said Roger. “Shall I jolly them up a bit?”
“Let’s give them tea,” said Elise, tilting her spoon until a few drops fell into the water.
“You’ll make them nervous,” warned Patty, “and Juliet is high-strung, anyway.”
Then Nan came in from her afternoon’s round of calls, and then Mr. Fairfield arrived, and they too were called upon to make friends with Darby and Juliet.
“Goldfish always make me think of a story about Whistler,” said Mr. Fairfield. “It seems, Whistler once had a room in a house in Florence, directly over a person who had some pet goldfish in a bowl. Every pleasant day the bowl was set out on the balcony, which was exactly beneath Whistler’s balcony. For days he resisted the temptation to fish for them with a bent pin and a string; but at last he succumbed to his angling instincts, and caught them all. Then, remorseful at what he had done, he fried them to a fine golden brown, and returned them to their owner on a platter.”
“Ugh!” cried Nan, “what a horrid story! Why do they always tack unpleasant stories on poor old Whistler? Now, I know a lovely story about a goldfish, which I will relate. It is said to be the composition of a small Boston schoolchild.
“‘Oh, Robin, lovely goldfish!
Who teached you how to fly?
Who sticked the fur upon your breast?
’Twas God, ’twas God what done it.’
Isn’t that lovely?”
“It is, indeed,” agreed Kenneth. “If that’s Boston precocity, it’s more attractive than I thought.”
“But it doesn’t rhyme,” said Elise.
“No,” said Patty; “that’s the beauty of it. It’s blank verse, as the greatest poetry often is. Don’t go yet, Elise. Stay to dinner, can’t you?”
“No, I can’t stay to-night, Patty, dear. Will you go skating to-morrow?”
Patty hesitated. She