hat it would cost--which
was enormous--before it was fit to live in. The only thing he didn't
know was that it was to be used for anything except an ordinary
_pied-a-terre_. He had heard, too, of the presence at the Cosmopolitan
of the twins, and on this point, like the rest of Acapulco, was a little
curious.

The social column of the Acapulco daily paper hadn't been able to give
any accurate description of the relationship of the Twinklers to Mr.
Twist. Its paragraph announcing his arrival had been obliged merely to
say, while awaiting more detailed information, that Mr. Edward A. Twist,
the well-known Breakfast Table Benefactor and gifted inventor of the
famous Non-Trickler Teapot, had arrived from New York and was staying at
the Cosmopolitan Hotel with _entourage_; and the day after this the
lawyer, who got about a bit, as everybody else did in that encouraging
climate, happening to look in at the Cosmopolitan to have a talk with a
friend, had seen the _entourage_.

It was in the act of passing through the hall on its way upstairs,
followed by a boy carrying a canary in a cage. Even without the boy and
the canary it was a conspicuous object. The lawyer asked his friend who
the cute little girls were, and was interested to hear he was beholding
Mr. Edward A. Twist's _entourage_. His friend told him that opinion in
the hotel was divided about the precise nature of this _entourage_ and
its relationship to Mr. Twist, but it finally came to be generally
supposed that the Miss Twinklers had been placed in his charge by
parents living far away in order that he might safely see them put to
one of the young ladies' finishing schools in that agreeable district.
The house Mr. Twist was taking was not connected in the Cosmopolitan
mind with the Twinklers. Houses were always being taken in that paradise
by wealthy persons from unkinder climates. He would live in it three
months in the year, thought the Cosmopolitan, bring his mother, and keep
in this way an occasional eye on his charges. The hotel guests regarded
the Twinklers at this stage with nothing but benevolence and goodwill,
for they had up to then only been seen and not heard; and as one of
their leading characteristics was a desire to explain, especially if
anybody looked a little surprised, which everybody usually did quite
early in conversation with them, this was at that moment, the delicate
moment before Mrs. Bilton's arrival, fortunate.

The lawyer, then, who ap