lace. Somebody had presumed to mention that
the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup had smoked several cigarettes with
infinite gusto at a certain garden party,--now what are you laughing at,
Miss Deane?"

"At the beautiful Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup!" and Mary's clear laughter
rippled out in a silvery peal of purest merriment--"That's not her name
surely!"

"Oh no, that's not her name!" and Angus laughed too--"It wouldn't do to
give her real name!--but Ketchup's quite as good and high-sounding as
the one she's got. And as I tell you, the whole 'staff' was convulsed.
Three shareholders came down post haste to the office--one at full speed
in a motor,--and said how _dare_ I mention Mrs. Mushroom Ketchup at all?
It was like my presumption to notice that she had smoked! Mrs. Mushroom
Ketchup's name must be kept out of the papers--she was a 'lady'! Oh, by
Jove!--how I laughed!--I couldn't help myself! I just roared with
laughter in the very faces of those shareholders! 'A lady!' said
I--'Why, she's---- ' But I wasn't allowed to say what she was, for the
shareholder who had arrived in the motor, fixed a deadly glance upon me
and said--'If you value your po-seetion'--he was a Lowland Scot, with
the Lowland accent--'if you value your po-seetion on this paper, you'll
hold your tongue!' So I did hold my tongue then--but only because I
meant to wag it more violently afterwards. I always devote Mrs. Mushroom
Ketchup to the blue blazes, because I'm sure it was through her I lost
my post. You see a shareholder in a paper has a good deal of influence,
especially if he has as much as a hundred thousand shares. You'd be
surprised if I told you the real names of some of the fellows who
control newspaper syndicates!--you wouldn't believe it! Or at any rate,
if you _did_ believe it, you'd never believe the newspapers!"

"I don't believe them now,"--said Helmsley--"They say one thing to-day
and contradict it to-morrow."

"Oh, but that's like all news!" said Mary, placidly--"Even in our little
village here, you never know quite what to believe. One morning you are
told that Mrs. Badge's baby has fallen downstairs and broken its neck,
and you've scarcely done being sorry for Mrs. Badge, when in comes Mrs.
Badge herself, baby and all, quite well and smiling, and she says she
'never did hear such tales as there are in Wiercombe'!"

They all laughed.

"Well, there's the end of my story,"--said Angus--"I worked on the
syndicate for two years, and