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Warner, Anne, 1869-1913

"The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary"

"
"We'll begin by dining out," said Burnett. "I'll give the dinner. One of
the souvenir kind of affairs. A white mouse for every man and a canary
bird for the lady. We'll have a private room and speeches and I'll get
megaphones so we can make her hear without bustin'."
"My dear boy," said Mitchell, "where is this private room to be in which
the party can converse through megaphones? I had two deaf uncles once who
played cribbage with megaphones, but they were influential and the rest of
the family were poor. Circumstances alter cases. I ask again where you can
get a private dining-room for the use of five people and four megaphones?"
"I'll see," said Burnett; "I wish," he added irritably, "that you'd wait
until I finished before beginning to smash in like that, you knock
everything out of my head."
"It'll do you good to have a little something knocked out of you," said
Mitchell gently. "It may enlarge your premises, give you a spare room
somewhere, so to speak. I should think that you'd need some spare room
somewhere after such a breakfast."
"I'll tell you what I think;" said Clover. "I think it's a great scheme.
It's a sort of pull-in-and-out, field-glass species of idea. We can
develop it or we can shut it off; in other words, we can parade Aunt Mary
or bring her home just when we darn please."
"That's what I said," said Burnett. "Begin with my dinner, white mice and
all, and when all is going just let it slide until it seems about time to
slide off.


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