human
What are you indefatigable people going to do next? asked Robert Page, lighting a cigar when their meal was finished.
gpt
I am extremely comfortable and good-natured now, but I warn you I shall turn dangerous if any one suggests the illumination. To be asked just to step over from Old Vienna to the Court of Honor sounds pleasant. It was played on me once when I was a tenderfoot; but I’m not to be roped into any such pilgrimage to-night. If I wasn’t a married man, I should sit right here and listen to the music, and see the Wheel go round, until it was time to go to my little bed.
human
What nonsense! remarked Hilda.
gpt
If you weren’t married you would be urging me to go with you in a gondola.
human
My dear, where would be the use? You know the gondolas are all bespoken by this time. What a sweet consciousness it is, by the way,
gpt
We are going, though, some night, returned his wife.
human
Before we leave the White City, you must take me in a gondola and hold my hand.
gpt
See the lengths to which this woman’s frenzy for spoons carries her! Why, I’ll hold your hand now, my dear. Any suggestion which presupposes so little exertion as that will find me in an affirmative state of mind every time.
human
We haven’t the stage-setting, she replied.
gpt
Be careful, Robert Page, or you will frighten Mildred out of getting married at all.
human
Is that true, Miss Mildred? Oh, I don’t believe it. You are so level-headed you must see the situation in the right light. Did you ever hear the simile of the horse-car? When a man is trying to catch a horse-car and afraid it is going to escape him, he waves his arms, shouts, hurries, and disturbs himself generally. After he has caught the conveyance, if he continued to behave in the same perturbed fashion he would be set down as a lunatic. You see the point, of course?
gpt
You are a very audacious man,
human
Now Jack isn’t smoking, continued Page argumentatively.
gpt
That indicates the restlessness of the man who is afraid he will arrive too late at the street corner.
human
It indicates that I am not going to stay here,
gpt
Whither away, restless one?
human
You will have to ask Miss Bryant. She is showing me the World’s Fair to-day.
gpt
Not after your perfidious behavior, said Mildred.
human
I was too sophisticated, was I? Oh, for shame!
gpt
Do you speak to me of perfidy!
human
Well, sha’n’t we all go somewhere together?
gpt
No, I think we sha’n’t, dear brother,
human
Do you want to stay, Hilda? asked Gorham.
gpt
Aren’t you growing tired of hearing Zwei Bier? Come with us.
human
No, thanks. I will stay here until it bores me, and then I will give Robert his choice of selecting another souvenir spoon or taking me out.
gpt
It was a shame about the lamp,
human
What?
gpt
I saw how it was. Too bad; but that is another thing she will repent at leisure.
human
How did you know?
gpt
By Mildred’s impish dimple. She has one just above her lip that never shows except when she is in mischief. At first I was taken in; but after a moment I saw the imp, and then I knew.
human
What a wonderful sight the Wheel is with its double row of electric lights,
gpt
What—yes; it has been rather warm,