Vexed at the ill success of this first trick, he retired a little from their conversation, puzzling over the cards, thinking out new tricks.  Every now and then he came back among them, going about from one to another, holding out the deck and exclaiming, “Choose any card—­choose any card.”

After a while they all adjourned to the dining-room and Turner and Vandover went out into the kitchen, foraging among the drawers and shelves.  They came back bringing with them a box of sardines, a tin of pate, three quart bottles of blue-ribbon beer, and what Vandover called “devilish-ham” sandwiches.

“Now do we want tamales to go with these?” said Turner, as she spread the lunch on the table.  Henrietta Vance cried out joyfully at this, and young Haight volunteered to go out to get them.  “Get six,” Turner cried out after him.  “Henrietta can always eat two.  Hurry up, and we won’t eat till you get back.”

While he was gone Turner got out some half-dozen glasses for their beer.  “Do you know,” she said as she set the glasses on the table, “the funniest thing happened this morning to mamma.  It was at breakfast; she had just drunk a glass of water and was holding the glass in her hand like this”—­Turner took one of the thin beer glasses in her hand to show them how—­“and was talking to pa, when all at once the glass broke right straight around a ring, just below the brim, you know, and fell all—­” On a sudden Turner uttered a shrill exclamation; the others started up; the very glass she held in her hand at the moment cracked and broke in precisely the manner she was describing.  A narrow ring snapped from the top, dropping on the floor, breaking into a hundred bits.

Turner drew in a long breath, open-mouthed, her hand in the air still holding the body of the glass that remained in her fingers.  They all began to exclaim over the wonder.

“Well, did you ever in all your life?” shouted Miss Vance, breaking into a peal of laughter.  Geary cried out, “Caesar’s ghost!” and Vandover swore under his breath.

“If that isn’t the strangest thing I ever saw!” cried Turner. “Isn’t that funny—­why—­oh!  I’m going to try it with another glass!” But the second glass remained intact.  Geary recovered from his surprise and tried to explain how it could happen.

“It was the heat from your fingers and the glass was cold, you know,” he said again and again.

But the strangeness of the thing still held them.  Turner set down the glass with the others and dropped into a chair, letting her hands fall in her lap, looking into their faces, nodding her head and shutting her lips: 

“Ah, no,” she said after a while.  “That is funny.  It kind of scares one.”  She was actually pale.

“Oh, there’s Dolly Haight!” cried Henrietta Vance as the door bell rang.  They all rushed to the door, running and scrambling, eager to tell the news.  Young Haight stood bewildered on the door mat in the vestibule, his arms full of brown-paper packages, while they recounted the marvel.  They all spoke at once, holding imaginary beer glasses toward him in their outstretched hands.  Geary, however, refused to be carried away by their excitement, and one heard him from time to time repeating, between their ejaculations, “It was the heat from her fingers, you know, and the glass was cold.”