e hated to have good stuff curdle
on his hands.

While this was going on, the Mayflower descendant was telephoning for
the police from one side and the Signer's great-grandson from the other,
and just as the crowd yelled and broke for the house two patrol wagons
full of policemen got there. But they had to turn in a riot call and
bring out the reserves before they could break up Hank's little Boston
tea-party.

After all, Hank did what he started out to do with his party--rounded up
all his neighbors in a bunch, though not exactly according to schedule.
For next morning there were so many descendants and great-grandsons in
the police court to prefer charges that it looked like a reunion of the
Pilgrim Fathers. The Judge fined Hank on sixteen counts and bound him
over to keep the peace for a hundred years. That afternoon he left for
the West on a special, because the Limited didn't get there quick
enough. But before going he tacked on the front door of his house a sign
which read:

"Neighbors paying their party calls will please not heave rocks
through windows to attract attention. Not in and not going to be.
Gone back to Circle City for a little quiet.

"Yours truly,
"HANK SMITH.

"N.B.--Too swift for your uncle."

Hank dropped by my office for a minute on his way to 'Frisco. Said he
liked things lively, but there was altogether too much rough-house on
Beacon Hill for him. Judged that as the crowd which wasn't invited was
so blamed sociable, the one which was invited would have stayed a week
if it hadn't slipped up on the date. That might be the Boston idea, but
he wanted a little more refinement in his. Said he was a pretty free
spender, and would hold his end up, but he hated a hog. Of course I told
Hank that Boston wasn't all that it was cracked up to be in the school
histories, and that Circle City wasn't so tough as it read in the
newspapers, for there was no way of making him understand that he might
have lived in Boston for a hundred years without being invited to a
strawberry sociable. Because a fellow cuts ice on the Arctic Circle, it
doesn't follow that he's going to be worth beans on the Back Bay.

I simply mention Hank in a general way. His case may be a little
different, but it isn't any more extreme than lots of others all around
you over there and me over here. Of course, I