Mr. Grimm. For instance, when the poets,--even
good men like the late Mr. Longfellow and Mr. Whittier--speak of 'wine,'
they use the word of course in its poetical sense. They use it merely to
typify----"

"Booze," growled McPherson.

"Good cheer," amended Mrs. Batholommey, withering him with a single
frown. "And yet it is terribly misleading. I remember when we had the
Walter Scott Tableaux and Recitations at the church last fall, and old
Mr. Bertholf from Pompton was going to recite 'Lochinvar,' I had to
suggest a change in the poem, lest the ignorant people in the village
might get a wrong impression of dear Sir Walter Scott's principles. You
remember the couplet occurs:

"'And now I have come with this lost love of mine
To tread one last measure, drink one cup of wine.'

"So I asked Mr. Bertholf to alter the words into something like this:

"'And now I have come with this beautiful maid
To tread one last measure,--drink one lemonade.'

"It left the poetry just as beautiful and it took away the dangerous
reference to wine. Mr. Bertholf didn't like it very much, I'm afraid.
But I insisted, and at last----"

"And at last," snarled McPherson, to whom the thought of any mutilation
of his fellow Scotchman's verse was as sacrilege, "and at last, poor
Bertholf got so mixed up that he clean forgot the silly rot you'd taught
him. And when he came to that part of the poem, he stammered for a
second and then blurted out:

"'And now I have come with my lovely lost mate
To tread one last measure, drink one whiskey straight.'"

"Yes," blazed Mrs. Batholommey, "and I have always believed _you_ put
him up to it."

"Well," shrugged the noncommittal McPherson, "if I had, it would at
least be more in keeping with what Sir Walter intended than your
straining an immortal poem through a lemon-squeezer."

"Andrew and I," announced Peter, hastening to pour oil on the troubled
waters of conversation, by filling two glasses and handing one of them
to McPherson, "are going to drink a toast to spooks."

"_What?_" squealed Mrs. Batholommey, in the accents of a rabbit that has
been stepped on.

"To spooks--we----"

"Oh, how _can_ you?" she gasped. "How _can_ you? To spooks! _You_ of all
men! The very idea!"

"Mrs. Batholommey!" exclaimed Peter in real alarm, setting down his
glass and moving toward her. "Something _has_ happened! You are
quite----"

"No, no!" she wailed helplessly.

"It is nothing, Mr. Grimm,"