He smiles vacantly at it--then vividly colors.
"What date?" he stoically asks.
"The date," I suggestively answer, "of your last letter to our dear
Doc, at Boarding-School, two days exactly in advance of her coming
home--this veritable visit now."
Both Bob and Doc rush at me--but too late. The letter and contents
have wholly vanished. The youngest Miss Mills quiets us--urgently
distracting us, in fact, by calling our attention to the immediate
completion of our joint production; "For now," she says, "with our new
reinforcement, we can, with becoming diligence, soon have it ready for
both printer and engraver, and then we'll wake up the boy (who has
been fortunately slumbering for the last quarter of an hour), and
present to him, as designed and intended, this matchless creation of
our united intellects." At the conclusion of this speech we all go
good-humoredly to work, and at the close of half an hour the tedious,
but most ridiculous, task is announced completed.
As I arrange and place in proper form here on the table the separate
cards--twenty-seven in number--I sigh to think that I am unable to
transcribe for you the best part of the nonsensical work--the
illustrations.
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