tes, discussing the weather, the Derby
winner, and all the other favorite English subjects before the boy came
back.

"'Yes, sir,' the boy reported, 'Crecy & Brown have a telephone, sir.
Their number is 485 Gerard, sir.'

"The clerk got me the number this time, and I did fairly well. Then I
sat down.

"'Did you want to call another number?' he asked me.

"'No, not two in the same day,' I said; 'but over in America we always
pass out something to the operator when she gives us wrong information
like that--just for the good of the service.'

"'I suppose I ought to reprimand her,' the clerk admitted--'call her
down, as you would say.'

"'If you don't, I will,' I told him.

"'Oh, I had much better do it,' he replied, hastily, taking the receiver
in his hand.

"'I say, miss,' he chirped, 'that number you just gave me, 485 Gerard,
_is_ Crecy & Brown, you know, the one you said had no telephone. Rather
a good joke on you, isn't it, miss?' Then he slammed the receiver on its
hook.

"'There!' he said, 'I think that will hold her for a while, as you say
in your country!'

"Wouldn't you think that would have just mortified her to death?"

Alice laughed. "If you were ambassador to England, Allen, you could
change all that. Perhaps that's the niche for you, after all."

"What's a 'niche'?" demanded Patricia, taking advantage of the first
opportunity to join in the conversation.

"What do you think it is, dear?" Mrs. Gorham asked, smiling.

"I think an itch is an awful feeling; why do you want him to have that?"
Patricia replied, sinking into obscurity at the laugh which her
definition evoked.

Her father, who had been an interested listener thus far, came to her
rescue, and took advantage of Alice's remark to turn the conversation in
the direction he had previously determined upon.

"You haven't heard from your father recently, I judge?" he said.

"I have an idea that the pater has overlooked me," Allen replied; "he's
been so busy with other things."

"Why don't you fall in with his ambition to make a diplomat of you?"

"Well--I suppose the strongest reasons are those which I can't put into
words, Mr. Gorham, but one that seems pretty good to me is that I don't
think I'm fitted for it."

"Why not?"

"I'm too optimistic, I think, to make a good diplomat. If a man's a
gentleman, and treats me square, I'm apt to think he's all right--and,
from what I hear, in diplomacy the one who fools the others the most