y. "You might begin that--I mean the less important
everybodies, of course, now that I've heard about you."

"Meaning--"

"Oh, Aunt Hannah, and the Greggorys, and Cyril and Marie, and the twins,
and Mr. Arkwright, and all the rest."

"But you've had letters, surely."

"Yes, I've had letters from some of them, and I've seen most of them
since I came back. It's just that I wanted to know _your_ viewpoint of
what's happened through the summer."

"Very well. Aunt Hannah is as dear as ever, wears just as many shawls,
and still keeps her clock striking twelve when it's half-past eleven.
Mrs. Greggory is just as sweet as ever--and a little more frail, I
fear,--bless her heart! Mr. Arkwright is still abroad, as I presume
you know. I hear he is doing great stunts over there, and will sing in
Berlin and Paris this winter. I'm thinking of going across from Panama
later. If I do I shall look him up. Mr. and Mrs. Cyril are as well as
could be expected when you realize that they haven't yet settled on a
pair of names for the twins."

"I know it--and the poor little things three months old, too! I think
it's a shame. You've heard the reason, I suppose. Cyril declares that
naming babies is one of the most serious and delicate operations in the
world, and that, for his part, he thinks people ought to select their
own names when they've arrived at years of discretion. He wants to
wait till the twins are eighteen, and then make each of them a birthday
present of the name of their own choosing."

"Well, if that isn't the limit!" laughed Calderwell. "I'd heard some
such thing before, but I hadn't supposed it was really so."

"Well, it is. He says he knows more tomboys and enormous fat women named
'Grace' and 'Lily,' and sweet little mouse-like ladies staggering along
under a sonorous 'Jerusha Theodosia' or 'Zenobia Jane'; and that if he
should name the boys 'Franz' and 'Felix' after Schubert and Mendelssohn
as Marie wants to, they'd as likely as not turn out to be men who hated
the sound of music and doted on stocks and dry goods."

"Humph!" grunted Calderwell. "I saw Cyril last week, and he said he
hadn't named the twins yet, but he didn't tell me why. I offered him two
perfectly good names myself, but he didn't seem interested."

"What were they?"

"Eldad and Bildad."

"Hugh!" protested Billy.

"Well, why not?" bridled the man. "I'm sure those are new and unique,
and really musical, too--'way ahead of your Franz and Felix.