The Ink
pale gray. I called Eliza at once. I was never quieter in my manner, and it was absurd of her to say that I needn't howl the house down.
"We will not discuss that," I replied. "Just now I sat down to write a letter—"
"What do you want to write letters for now? You might just as well have done them at the office."
I shrugged my shoulders in a Continental manner. "You are probably not aware that I was writing to your own mother. She has so few pleasures. If you do not feel rebuked now—"
"I don't think mamma will lend you any more if you do write."
"We will not enter into that. Why did you fill the ink-pot with water?"
"I didn't."
"Then who did?"
"Nobody did. I didn't think of it until tea-time, and then—well, the tea was there."
I once read a story where a man laughed a low, mirthless laugh. The laugh came to
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