As we pulled out of the Mayonnaise Mansion I looked back at Ikey to thank him with a farewell nod.
He was halfway under the table, holding both hands to his sides and making funny faces at the carpet.
Say! did you ever have to leave the soothing influence of your own rattling radiators in the Big City and go romping off to a rich relation's for the week-end?
Well, don't do it, if you can help it, and if you can't help it get back home as soon as possible.
When Uncle Gilbert Hawley sent us an invitation to run up to Hawleysville for a day or two I looked at Peaches and she looked at me--then we both looked out the window.
We knew what a wildly hilarious time we'd have splashing out small talk to the collection of human bric-a-brac always to be found at Uncle Gilbert's, but what is one going to do when the richest old gink in the family waves a beckoning arm?
I'll tell you what one is going to do--one is going to take to one's o'sullivans, beat it rapidly to a choo-choo, and float into Uncle Gilbert's presence with a business of being tickled to death--that's what one is going to do.
You know Nature has a few immutable laws, and one is that even a rich old uncle must in the full course of time pass on and leave nephews and nieces. Leave them what? Ah! that's it! Where's that timetable?
Hawleysville is about forty miles away on the P. D. & Q., and it is some burg. Uncle Gilbert wrote it all himself.
Uncle Gilbert has nearly all the money there is in the world. Every time he signs a check a national bank goes out of existence. He tried to count it all once, but he sprained his wrists and had to stop.
On the level, when he goes into a bank all the government bonds get up and yell, "Hello, Papa!"
When he cuts coupons it's like a sheep shearing.
He has muscles all over him like a prizefighter just from lifting mortgages.
When Peaches and I finally reached the Hawley mansion on the hill we found there a scene of great excitement. Old and distant relations were bustling up and down the stone steps, talking in whispers; servants with scared faces and popping eyes were peeping around the corner of the house, and in the roadway in front of a sobbing automobile stood Uncle Gilbert and Aunt Miranda, made up to look like two members of the Peary expedition at the Pole.