"
"Let it melt out and float away in the spring," Mary said. "It may be a
perch for a sea-gull or a buoy for a drowning man."
Here, if this were a long story instead of a short one, might be given a
description of Peter Skerrett's house and the _menu_ of Mrs. Skerrett's
dinner. Peter and his wife had both been to great pillory dinners, _ad
nauseam_, and learnt what to avoid. How not to be bored is the object of
all civilization, and the Skerretts had discovered the methods. I must
dismiss the dinner and the evening, stamped with the general epithet,
Perfection.
"You will join us again to-morrow on the river," said Mrs. Skerrett, as
Wade rose to go.
"To-morrow I go to town to report to my Directors."
"Then next day."
"Next day, with pleasure."
Wade departed and marked this halcyon day with white chalk, as the
whitest, brightest, sweetest of his life.
CHAPTER X.
FOREBODINGS.
Jubilation! Jubilation now, instead of Consternation, in the office of
Mr. Benjamin Brummage in Wall Street.
President Brummage had convoked his Directors to hear the First
Semi-Annual Report of the new Superintendent and Dictator of Dunderbunk.
And there they sat around the green table, no longer forlorn and
dreading a, failure, but all chuckling with satisfaction over their
prosperity.
They were a happy and hilarious family now,--so hilarious that
the President was obliged to be always rapping to Order with his
paper-knife.
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