es," I continued, while Bunch kicked my
shins under the table, "you will find self-freezing refrigerators and
self-leaving servants. All the rooms are light rooms, when you light the
gas. Two of his houses overlook the Park and all of them overlook the
building laws. The floors are made of concrete so that if you want to
bring a horse in the parlor you can do so without kicking off the
plaster in the flat below. Every room has folding doors, and when the
water pipes burst the janitor has folding arms."

"Quit your joshing, John! you'll embarrass Mr. Schwartz," laughed Bunch
somewhat nervously, but Ikey's grin never flickered.

"Is Mr. Schwartz deaf and dumb?" Peaches whispered.

"Intermittently so," I whispered back; "sometimes for hours at a time he
cannot speak a word and can hear only the loudest tones."

Aunt Martha heard my comment on Ikey's infirmity and was about to
become intensely sympathetic and tell him how her brother's wife was
cured when Bunch interrupted loudly by asking after Uncle Peter's
health.

"Never better," answered Aunt Martha. "He has spent all the morning
arranging the program of dancing for our little party. He insists upon
having the Virginia Reel, the old-fashioned waltz, the Polka and the
Lancers. Uncle Peter has a perfect horror of these modern dances and
Peaches and Alice and I share it with him." Then she turned to Ikey:
"Don't you think these modern dances are perfectly disgusting?"

Poor Ikey looked reproachfully at the old lady a second, then with
gathering astonishment he slid silently off the chair and struck the
floor with a bump.

Aunt Martha was so rattled over this unexpected effort on Mr. Schwartz's
part that she upset her coffee and Ikey got most of it in the back of
the neck.

When peace was finally restored the old lady came to the surface with an
envelope which had been lying on the table near her plate.

"Is this your letter, John?" she asked, and then, arranging her glasses,
read with great deliberation, "Mr. I. Schwartz, Tango Teacher, care of
Kumearly and Staylates' Cabaret, New York."

Peaches and Alice went into the ice business right away quick.

Aunt Martha, in pained surprise, looked at me and then at Bunch, and
finally focused a steady beam of interrogation upon the countenance of
Mr. Schwartz.

Ikey never whimpered.

Then Bunch took the letter from the open-eyed Aunt Martha and leaped to
the rescue while I came out of the trance slowly.

"It's t