Coffee and Repartee | Page 2

one. The umbrella in question is
mine. It has been in my possession for five years."
"Then," replied the Idiot, unabashed, "it is time you returned it. Don't
you think men's morals are rather lax in this matter of umbrellas, Mr.
Whitechoker?" he added, turning from the School-master, who began
to show signs of irritation.
"Very," said the Minister, running his finger about his neck to make the
collar which had been sent home from the laundry by mistake set more
easily--"very lax. At the last Conference I attended, some person,

forgetting his high office as a minister in the Church, walked off with
my umbrella without so much as a thank you; and it was embarrassing
too, because the rain was coming down in bucketfuls."
"What did you do?" asked the landlady, sympathetically. She liked Mr.
Whitechoker's sermons, and, beyond this, he was a more profitable
boarder than any of the others, remaining home to luncheon every day
and having to pay extra therefor.
"There was but one thing left for me to do. I took the bishop's
umbrella," said Mr. Whitechoker, blushing slightly.
"But you returned it, of course?" said the Idiot.
"I intended to, but I left it on the train on my way back home the next
day," replied the clergyman, visibly embarrassed by the Idiot's
unexpected cross-examination.
"It's the same way with books," put in the Bibliomaniac, an unfortunate
being whose love of rare first editions had brought him down from
affluence to boarding. "Many a man who wouldn't steal a dollar would
run off with a book. I had a friend once who had a rare copy of
_Through Africa by Daylight_. It was a beautiful book. Only
twenty-five copies printed. The margins of the pages were four inches
wide, and the title-page was rubricated; the frontispiece was colored by
hand, and the seventeenth page had one of the most amusing
typographical errors on it--"
"Was there any reading-matter in the book?" queried the Idiot, blowing
softly on a hot potato that was nicely balanced on the end of his fork.
[Illustration: "ALARMED THE COOK"]
"Yes, a little; but it didn't amount to much," returned the Bibliomaniac.
"But, you know, it isn't as reading-matter that men like myself care for
books. We have a higher notion than that. It is as a specimen of
book-making that we admire a chaste bit of literature like Through
Africa by Daylight. But, as I was saying, my friend had this book, and

he'd extra-illustrated it. He had pictures from all parts of the world in it,
and the book had grown from a volume of one hundred pages to four
volumes of two hundred pages each."
"And it was stolen by a highly honorable friend, I suppose?" queried
the Idiot.
"Yes, it was stolen--and my friend never knew by whom," said the
Bibliomaniac.
"What?" asked the Idiot, in much surprise. "Did you never confess?"
It was very fortunate for the Idiot that the buckwheat cakes were
brought on at this moment. Had there not been some diversion of that
kind, it is certain that the Bibliomaniac would have assaulted him.
"It is very kind of Mrs. Smithers, I think," said the School-master, "to
provide us with such delightful cakes as these free of charge."
"Yes," said the Idiot, helping himself to six cakes. "Very kind indeed,
although I must say they are extremely economical from an
architectural point of view--which is to say, they are rather fuller of
pores than of buckwheat. I wonder why it is," he continued, possibly to
avert the landlady's retaliatory comments--"I wonder why it is that
porous plasters and buckwheat cakes are so similar in appearance?"
"And so widely different in their respective effects on the system," put
in a genial old gentleman who occasionally imbibed, seated next to the
Idiot.
"I fail to see the similarity between a buckwheat cake and a porous
plaster," said the School-master, resolved, if possible, to embarrass the
Idiot.
"You don't, eh?" replied the latter. "Then it is very plain, sir, that you
have never eaten a porous plaster."
To this the School-master could find no reasonable reply, and he took

refuge in silence. Mr. Whitechoker tried to look severe; the gentleman
who occasionally imbibed smiled all over; the Bibliomaniac ignored
the remark entirely, not having as yet forgiven the Idiot for his gross
insinuation regarding his friend's édition de luxe of _Through Africa by
Daylight_; Mary, the maid, who greatly admired the Idiot, not so much
for his idiocy as for the aristocratic manner in which he carried himself,
and the truly striking striped shirts he wore, left the room in a
convulsion of laughter that so alarmed the cook below-stairs that the
next platterful of cakes were more like tin plates than cakes; and as for
Mrs.