schlag_, y'understand?"

"Say," Morris said, "the dining-room at the White House is a big place,
but it ain't exactly Madison Square Garden, and it ain't even Childs's
Boardwalk restaurant, neither."

"Then let him invite them to a series of meals in rotation
alphabetically, and let it go at that," Abe suggested.

"Before that would get him out of his troubles and not hold up the
confirmation of the Peace Treaty and League of Nations, Abe, Mr. Wilson
would first got to get an act of Congress passed amending the order of
the alphabet and making L for Lodge, J for Johnson, and R for Reed come
ahead of H for Hitchcock, who, of course, wouldn't mind helping out Mr.
Wilson by allowing himself to be shifted to the third or fourth
sitting," Morris said.

"Maybe it would be a good thing to let the alphabet stand and square
things with Borah and Brandegee," Abe retorted.

"It might even be still better if Mr. Wilson would write the King,
junior, to be so good and postpone his visit until after Inauguration
Day, 1921, and put the entire problem up to the next President, whoever
he might be," Morris said.

"He might even be Mr. Wilson," Abe concluded; "because, when it comes to
a job like entertaining this here King, junior, what American is anxious
to tackle it, even if by doing so he could become President even? Am I
right or wrong?"

THE END

NOVELS OF

THOMAS HARDY

The New Thin-Paper Edition of the greatest living English novelist
is issued in two bindings: Red Limp-Leather and Red Flexible Cloth,
12mo. Frontispiece in each volume.

_DESPERATE REMEDIES_
_FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD_
_A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES_
_THE HAND OF ETHELBERTA_
_JUDE THE OBSCURE_
_A LAODICEAN_
_LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES_
_THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE_
_A PAIR OF BLUE EYES_
_THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE_
_TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES_
_THE TRUMPET MAJOR_
_TWO ON A TOWER_
_UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE_
_THE WELL-BELOVED_
_WESSEX TALES_
_THE WOODLANDERS_

HARPER & BROTHERS

NEW YORK ESTABLISHED 1817 LONDON

NOVELS OF

WILL N. HARBEN

"His people talk as if they had not been in books before, and they
talk all the more interestingly because they have for the most part
not been in society, or ever will be. They express themselves in
the neighborly parlance with a fury of fun, of pathos, and
profanity which is native to their region. Of all our localists, as
I may call t