“Thought you was goin’ to have pop-corn to-night all so fast!” he says, doggedly, in the midst of a momentary lull that has fallen on a game of whist.  And then the oldest Mills girl, who thinks cards stupid anyhow, says:  “That’s so, Billy; and we’re going to have it, too; and right away, for this game’s just ending, and I shan’t submit to being bored with another.  I say ‘pop-corn’ with Billy!  And after that,” she continues, rising and addressing the party in general, “we must have another literary and artistic tournament, and that’s been in contemplation and preparation long enough; so you gentlemen can be pulling your wits together for the exercises, while us girls see to the refreshments.”

“Have you done anything toward it!” queries Bob, when the girls are gone, with the alert Billy in their wake.

“Just an outline,” I reply.  “How with you?”

“Clean forgot it—­that is, the preparation; but I’ve got a little old second-hand idea, if you’ll all help me out with it, that’ll amuse us some, and tickle Billy I’m certain.”

So that’s agreed upon; and while Bob produces his portfolio, drawing paper, pencils and so on, I turn to my note-book in a dazed way and begin counting my fingers in a depth of profound abstraction, from which I am barely aroused by the reappearance of the girls and Billy.

“Goody, goody, goody!  Bob’s goin’ to make pictures!” cries Billy, in additional transport to that the cake pop-corn has produced.

“Now, you girls,” says Bob, gently detaching the affectionate Billy from one leg and moving a chair to the table, with a backward glance of intelligence toward the boy,—­“you girls are to help us all you can, and we can all work; but, as I’ll have all the illustrations to do, I want you to do as many of the verses as you can—­that’ll be easy, you know,—­because the work entire is just to consist of a series of fool-epigrams, such as, for instance.—­Listen, Billy: 

  Here lies a young man
  Who in childhood began
    To swear, and to smoke, and to drink,—­
  In his twentieth year
  He quit swearing and beer,
    And yet is still smoking, I think.”

And the rest of his instructions are delivered in lower tones, that the boy may not hear; and then, all matters seemingly arranged, he turns to the boy with—­“And now, Billy, no lookin’ over shoulders, you know, or swinging on my chair-back while I’m at work.  When the pictures are all finished, then you can take a squint at ’em, and not before.  Is that all hunky, now?”

“Oh! who’s a-goin’ to look over your shoulder—­only Doc.”  And as the radiant Doc hastily quits that very post, and dives for the offending brother, he scrambles under the piano and laughs derisively.

And then a silence falls upon the group—­a gracious quiet, only intruded upon by the very juicy and exuberant munching of an apple from a remote fastness of the room, and the occasional thumping of a bare heel against the floor.