ys he.

"A what?"

"A stag party, where ladies sometimes manage to see and listen. You will
have a chance from the back windows, I dare say; only sit low and keep
still, the flags will conceal you."

"Oh! it's a stag party at the table, and crouching dears all around,"
says I, "is it?"

Cousin Dempster laughed till he nearly choked.

"That's capital," says he. "You are getting too bright for anything."

I couldn't quite make out what I'd said that set him off so, but I
suppose he did, for he kept on laughing all the way downstairs, and the
fun hadn't left his face when he introduced me to Mr. Brooks, who was in
the room we entered, talking with some ladies that had come to look on
and help his daughter to talk to the Japaneses, who don't understand a
word of English.

Sisters, I really think we New England people ought to be proud of Mr.
Brooks, for he's not only tall and large, and real handsome, but he's a
self-made man, having worked out his own education by the hardest toil.
He edited a daily paper before he was twenty years old; was a member of
the Maine legislature when he was twenty-three; and travelled all over
Europe on foot before he was twenty-five. He has been in Congress, off
and on, twelve years, besides travelling all round the world between
whiles, which brought him hand-and-glove with the Japanese, the heathen
Chinee, and all the other outlandish people that we send missionaries
to, and convert a dozen or so once in fifty years.

Well, Mr. Brooks seemed real glad to see us, and was polite as could be;
so was his daughter and all the other ladies, when they found out who it
was they had among them. He'd been in Vermont, of course, before going
round what was left of the world, and his praise of the Old Mountain
State was something worth hearing. He asked about Sprucehill, and said
that he had pleasant reminiscences of that place, having kept a school
in one just like it in his vacations in college. Particularly he
recollected a sugar camp where he used to drink maple sap, and eat sugar
till it had been a sweet remembrance to him all his life.

While we were talking in this satisfactory manner, the fellow in gloves
sung out a name that got so tangled up in his mouth that it set my teeth
on edge. Then came another, and another that I didn't listen to; for
that minute I saw a pair of peaked shoes coming through the door, and
above them Mr. Iwakura, with that glazed punch-bowl on his head, and his