seat with our coveted Bacon, we thanked her. It was very
evident, all the while, that she, or they, stayed, that Ike was seeing
how near he could come to our lame member, and not touch it. He did
touch it sometimes, but those didn't count.

XX

"I've always noticed," said Mrs. Partington on New Year's Day, dropping
her voice to the key that people adopt when they are disposed to be
philosophical or moral; "I've always noticed that every year added to a
man's life is apt to make him older, just as a man who goes a journey
finds, as he jogs on, that every mile he goes brings him nearer where he
is going, and farther from where he started. I am not so young as I was
once, and I don't believe I shall ever be, if I live to the age of
Samson, which, Heaven knows as well as I do, I don't want to, for I
wouldn't be a centurion or an octagon, and survive my factories, and
become idiomatic, by any means. But then there is no knowing how a thing
will turn out till it takes place; and we shall come to an end some day,
though we may never live to see it."

There was a smart tap on the looking-glass that hung upon the wall,
followed instantly by another.

"Gracious!" said she; "what's that? I hope the glass isn't fractioned,
for it is a sure sign of calamity, and mercy knows they come along full
fast enough without helping 'em by breaking looking-glasses."

There was another tap, and she caught sight of a white bean that fell on
the floor; and there, reflected in the glass, was the face of Ike, who
was blowing beans at the mirror through a crack in the door.

XXI

"As for the Chinese question," said Mrs. Partington, reflectively,
holding her spoon at "present," while the vapor of her cup of tea curled
about her face, which shone through it like the moon through a mist, "it
is a great pity that somebody don't answer it, though who under the
canister of heaven can do it, with sich letters as they have on their
tea-chists, is more than I can tell. It is really too bad, though, that
some lingister doesn't try it, and not have this provoking question
asked all the time, as if we were ignoramuses, and did not know Toolong
from No Strong, and there never was sich a thing as the seventh
commandment, which, Heaven knows, suits this case to a T, and I hope the
breakers of it may escape, but I don't see how they can. The question
must be answered, unless it is like a cannondrum, to be given up, which
nobody of any spirit should do.