"I haven't got a bean left," said Laurence.

John nearly gave a visible jump; there was something terribly suggestive in that simple horticultural disclaimer.

"Our beans are quite over," added Edith in the astonished voice of one who has tumbled upon a secret of nature. She had a habit of echoing many of her husband's remarks like this; perhaps "echoing" is a bad description of her method, for she seldom repeated literally and often not immediately. Sometimes indeed she would wait as long as half an hour before she reissued in the garb of a personal philosophical discovery or of an exegitical gloss the most casual remark of Laurence, a habit which irritated him and embarrassed other people, who would look away from Edith and mutter a hurried agreement or ask for the salt to be passed.

"I remember," said old Mrs. Touchwood, "that beans were a favorite dish of poor Papa, though I myself always liked peas better."

"I like peas," Harold proclaimed.

"I like peas, too," cried Frida excitedly.

"Frida," said her father, pulling out with a click one of the graver tenor stops in his voice, "we do not talk at table about our likes and dislikes."

Edith indorsed this opinion with a grave nod at Frida, or rather with a solemn inclination of the head as if she were bowing to an altar.

"But I like new potatoes best of all," continued Harold. "My gosh, all buttery!"

Laurence screwed up his eye in a disgusted wince, looked down his nose at his plate, and drew a shocked cork from his throat.

"Hush," said Hilda. "Didn't you hear what Uncle Laurence said, darling?"

She spoke as one speaks to children in church when the organ begins; one felt that she was inspired by social tact rather than by any real reverence for the clergyman.

"Well, I do like new potatoes, and I like asparagus."

Frida was just going to declare for asparagus, too, when she caught her father's eye and choked.

"Evidently the vegetable that Frida likes best," said John, riding buoyantly upon the gale of Frida's convulsions, "is an artichoke."

It is perhaps lucky for professional comedians that 

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