their chairs when the old lady began to
heave into activity, and they stood watching the three departing
figures. They were a little surprised. Surely they had all been in the
middle of an interesting conversation?

"Perhaps it's American to go away in the middle," remarked Anna-Rose,
following the group with her eyes as it moved toward the lift.

"Perhaps it is," said Anna-Felicitas, also gazing after it.

The old gentleman, in the brief moment during which the two ladies had
their backs to him while preceding him into the lift, turned quickly
round on his heels and waved his hand before he himself went in.

The twins laughed, and waved back; and they waved with such goodwill
that the old gentleman couldn't resist giving one more wave. He was
seen doing it by the two ladies as they faced round, and his wife, as
she let herself down on to the edge of the seat, remarked that he
mustn't exert himself like that or he would have to begin taking his
drops again.

That was all she said in the lift; but in their room, when she had got
her breath again, she said, "Albert, there's just one thing in the world
I hate worse than a fool, and that's an old fool."

CHAPTER XXV

That evening, while the twins were undressing, a message came up from
the office that the manager would be obliged if the Miss Twinklers'
canary wouldn't sing.

"But it can't help it," said Anna-Felicitas through the crack of door
she held open; she was already in her nightgown. "You wouldn't either if
you were a canary," she added, reasoning with the messenger.

"It's just got to help it," said he.

"But why shouldn't it sing?"

"Complaints."

"But it always has sung."

"That is so. And it has sung once too often. It's unpopular in this
hotel, that canary of yours. It's just got to rest a while. Take it
easy. Sit quiet on its perch and think."

"But it won't sit quiet and think."

"Well, I've told you," he said, going away.

This was the bird that had been seen arriving at the Cosmopolitan about
a week before by the lawyer, and it had piercingly sung ever since. It
sang, that is, as long as there was any light, real or artificial, to
sing by. The boy who carried it from the shop for the twins said its
cage was to be hung in a window in the sun, or it couldn't do itself
justice. But electric light also enabled it to do itself justice, the
twins discovered, and if they sat up late the canary sat up late too,
singing as loudly and as