andelion wine
and they finished their meal in thoughtful silence.

"Mr. Bleak," said the other at last, "it was something more than mere
desire to give you a pleasant surprise that led me to your office this
afternoon. Have you leisure to listen? Good! Please try one of these
cigars. If, while I am talking, you should hear any one moving in the
garden, just tap quietly on the table. Tell me, have you, before
to-day, ever heard of the Corporation for the Perpetuation of
Happiness?"

"Never," replied Bleak, kindling a magnifico of remarkably rich, mild
flavor.

"That is as I expected," rejoined Quimbleton. "We have campaigned
incognito, partly by choice and partly (let me be candid) by necessity.
But the time is come when we shall have to appear in the open. The last
great struggle is on, and it can no longer be conducted in the dark. In
the course of my remarks I may be tempted to forget our present perils.
I beg of you, if you hear any sounds that seem suspicious, to notify me
instantly."

"Pardon me," said Bleak, a little uneasily; "it was my intention to
catch the 9.30 train for Mandrake Park."

The fantastic cascade of false white hair wagged gravely in the dusk.

"My dear sir," said Quimbleton solemnly, "I fancy you are to be
gratified by a far higher destiny than catching the 9.30. Do me the
honor of filling your glass. But be careful not to clink the decanter
against the tumbler. There is every probability that vigilant ears are
on the alert."

There was a brief silence, and Bleak wondered (a trifle wildly) if he
were dreaming. The cigar on the opposite side of the little table
glowed rosily several times, and then Quimbleton's voice resumed, in a
deep undertone.

"It is necessary to tell you," he said, "that the Corporation was
founded a number of years ago, long before the events of the fatal year
1919 and the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The incident of
this afternoon may have caused you to think that what is vulgarly
called booze is the chief preoccupation of our society. That is not so.
We were organized at first simply to bring merriment and good cheer
into the lives of those who have found the vexations of modern life too
trying. In our early days we carried on an excellent (though
unsystematic) guerilla warfare against human suffering.

"In this (let me admit it frankly) we were to a great degree selfish.
As you are aware, the essence of humor is surprise: we found a
delicious hum