ogs, and a cat in the wood-shed."

"And a cat in the wood-shed?" echoed the Lay Reader quite idiotically.

"The table is set," affirmed Flame. "The places, all ready!--But I
don't know how to get the dogs into their chairs!--They run around so!
They yelp! They jump!--They haven't had a mouthful to eat, you see,
since last night, this time!--And when they once see the turkey
I'm--I'm afraid they'll stampede it."

"Turkey?" quizzed the Lay Reader who had dined that day on corned
beef.

"Oh, of course, mush was what they were intended to have," admitted
Flame. "Piles and piles of mush! Extra piles and piles of mush I
should judge because it was Christmas Day!... But don't you think mush
does seem a bit dull?" she questioned appealingly. "For Christmas
Day? Oh, I did think a turkey would taste so good!"

"It certainly would," conceded the Lay Reader.

"So if you'd help me--" wheedled Flame, "it would be well-worth
staying blindfolded for.... For, of course, I shall have to stay
blindfolded. But I can see a little of the floor," she admitted,
"though I couldn't of course break my promise to my Mother by seeing
you."

"No, certainly not," admitted the Lay Reader.

"Otherwise--" murmured Flame with a faint gesture towards the door.

"I will help you," said the Lay Reader.

"Where is your hand?" fumbled Flame.

"_Here_!" attested the Lay Reader.

"Lead us to the dogs!" commanded Flame.

Now the Captain of a ship feels genuinely obligated, it would seem, to
go down with his ship if tragic circumstances so insist. But he
never,--so far as I've ever heard, felt the slightest obligation
whatsoever to go down with another captain's ship,--to be martyred in
short for any job not distinctly his own. So Bertrand Lorello,--who
for the cause he served, wouldn't have hesitated an instant probably,
to be torn by Hindoo lions,--devoured by South Sea cannibals,--fallen
upon by a chapel spire,--trampled to death even at a church rummage
sale,--saw no conceivable reason at the moment for being eaten by dogs
at a purely social function.

Even groping through a balsam-scented darkness with one hand clasping
the thrilly fingers of a lovely young girl, this distaste did not
altogether leave him.

"This--this mush that you speak of?" he questioned quite abruptly.
"With the dogs as--as nervous as you say,--so unfortunately liable to
stampede? Don't you think that perhaps a little mush served first,--a
good deal of mush I would sa