simply works--works. Thus, you see there are four hands to feed Angelo,
and the same four to feed me. Each of us eats two meals."

The old lady was dazed with admiration, and kept saying, "It is perfectly
wonderful, perfectly wonderful" and the boy Joe licked his chops
enviously, but said nothing--at least aloud.

"Yes," continued Luigi, "our construction may have its disadvantages--in
fact, has but it also has its compensations of one sort and another. Take
travel, for instance. Travel is enormously expensive, in all countries;
we have been obliged to do a vast deal of it--come, Angelo, don't put any
more sugar in your tea, I'm just over one indigestion and don't want
another right away--been obliged to do a deal of it, as I was saying.
Well, we always travel as one person, since we occupy but one seat; so we
save half the fare."

"How romantic!" interjected Rowena, with effusion.

"Yes, my dear young lady, and how practical too, and economical. In
Europe, beds in the hotels are not charged with the board, but
separately--another saving, for we stood to our rights and paid for the
one bed only. The landlords often insisted that as both of us occupied
the bed we ought--"

"No, they didn't," said Angelo. "They did it only twice, and in both
cases it was a double bed--a rare thing in Europe--and the double bed
gave them some excuse. Be fair to the landlords; twice doesn't
constitute 'often.'"

"Well, that depends--that depends. I knew a man who fell down a well
twice. He said he didn't mind the first time, but he thought the second
time was once too often. Have I misused that word, Mrs. Cooper?"

"To tell the truth, I was afraid you had, but it seems to look, now, like
you hadn't." She stopped, and was evidently struggling with the
difficult problem a moment, then she added in the tone of one who is
convinced without being converted, "It seems so, but I can't somehow tell
why."

Rowena thought Luigi's retort was wonderfully quick and bright, and she
remarked to herself with satisfaction that there wasn't any young native
of Dawson's Landing that could have risen to the occasion like that.
Luigi detected the applause in her face, and expressed his pleasure and
his thanks with his eyes; and so eloquently withal, that the girl was
proud and pleased, and hung out the delicate sign of it on her cheeks.
Luigi went on, with animation:

"Both of us get a bath for one ticket, theater seat for one ticket,
pew