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Show THE DIFFERENCE tty SAW you coming up the street A aftd standing at the gate with Mr. Honeyhug and Mr. Plnyfair," said Mrs. Jamesworthy. "All three of you were laughing so the whole neighborhood neighbor-hood could hear you. I wonder why siupmonr ot new spring nnts, .nisi received re-ceived at the millinery ' foundry, and you were so interested you forgot tho lapse of time, and didn't get home la time to cook anything. Rut you flashed a winning smile at me, and said it wouldn't take you fen minutes to warm up a can of beans, and there was some cold coffee left from breakfast, and you had plenty of smoked herrings on hand. "Doubtless I should have hurst forth into boisterous laughter over this entertaining en-tertaining anecdote, but somehow It didn't appeal to my sense of humor. I was so busy that day I hadn't time to eat anything at noon, and all the way home I was hoping you would have a porterhouse steak about three inches thick, and a raft of boiled potatoes, po-tatoes, and perhaps a slab of mince pie as an epilogue. "The day before that, when I came home as hollow as a bass drum, and fairly gnashing my teeth with hunger, hun-ger, you related a humorous story to the effect that your club didn't adjourn on time that afternoon, and you didn't get home until late, so I would have to get along with a picked-tip supper. If I would he patient a few minutes, you said, to make the story seem more spicy, you would boll an egg for me, and there was cold corn bread In the cuphnard. "Such stories, Mrs. Jamesworthy, may seem highly amusing to an Innocent Inno-cent bystander, and I have no doubt they would make a great hit If written up and printed In London runeh, but there is something wrong with my sense of humor, or I am at the wrong end of the stories. Anyhow, I can't gurgle over them as I do over Ilouey-bug's Ilouey-bug's yarns." VI' - you do all the laughing w i t h your friends, and do nothing but grumble and scowl at home. I haven't seen you laugh in the house in five years, as you laughed out there with those men." "There's nothing noth-ing in this house to laugh at," re-plied re-plied James- w ortn y. ,J tin Honeyhug is a good story-teller, and he was telling us a bully yarn, and for a brief season we forgot: the burdens laid upon us, which are greater than we can hear. If you could (ell a story as well as Honeyhug does, I'd fill these ancestral halls with silvery laughter, hut you never try to say anything amusing, Mrs. Jamesworthy. You do tell slories, hut they are of a gloomy and tragic character. "Last night, when I came home, yon told a dramatic story to the effect that you had callers all afternoon, and hadn't a chance to cook anylhing for me, and so I had to eat canned salmon and soda crackers, and wash them down wiih water, and I insist (hat when a husband comes home from his arduous labors in the clanging mart, so empty lliat his. watch chain makes a clanking sound when It flaps against his spine, he should have warm victuals, vic-tuals, something lie can consume with pleasure and pride. The fact that you had an Invasion of callers is a cheap excuse. "My sainted' mother never would have permitted any callers to interfere with her management of the cook-stove. cook-stove. She realized that her old man kept the shebang going, and that he should have the right of way. If any old hens happened to he in the house when grub time approached, my mother moth-er would request them, firmly but respectfully, re-spectfully, to chase themselves, and if they didn't like it (hey could lump it. When my father came homo from his work, the hay was always in Iho manger for him, and he never had to wait five minules for a meal. "The day before yesterday, when I came staggering home, faint and weary from my herculean efforts to make belli ends meet, ynu told me another an-other story. It was to the effccl that you had been downtown sizing up n |