“‘No, at the wreck,’ says he.  The old boy was still quiet on the outside, but was plainly under great excitement, for he now folded his napkin with care, a crime of which I knew Ellabelle had broken him the first week in New York, years before.  I noticed their butler had the fine feeling to look steadily away at the wall during this obscenity.  The offender then made a pleasant remark about the beauty of the day and left the palatial apartment swiftly.  Young Angus and his mother looked at each other and strolled after him softly over rugs costing about eighty thousand dollars.  The husband and father was being driven off by a man he could trust in a car they had let him have for his own use.  Later Ellabelle confides to me that she mistrusts old Angus is contemplating some bit of his national deviltry.  ’He had a strange look on his face,’ says she, ’and you know—­once a Scotchman, always a Scotchman!  Oh, it would be pitiful if he did anything peculiarly Scotch just at our most critical period here!’ Then she felt of her face to see if there was any nervous lines come into it, and there was, and she beat it for the maid to have ’em rubbed out ere they set.

“Yet at dinner that night everything seemed fine, with old Angus as jovial as I’d ever seen him, and the meal come to a cheerful end and we was having coffee in the Looey de Medisee saloon, I think it is, before a word was said about this here injured hotel.

“‘You were far too modest this morning, you sly dog!’ says Angus, peer, at last, chuckling delightedly.  ’You misled me grievously.  That job of wrecking shows genius of a quality that was all too rare in my time.  I suspect it’s the college that does it.  I shouldn’t wonder now if going through college is as good as a liberal education.  I don’t believe mere uneducated house-wreckers could have done so pretty a job in twice the time, and there’s clever little touches they never would have thought of at all.’

“‘It did look thorough when we left,’ says young Angus, not quite knowing whether to laugh.

“‘It’s nothing short of sublime,’ says his father proudly.  ’I stood in that deserted banquet hall, though it looks never a bit like one, with ruin and desolation on every hand as far as the eye could reach.  It inspired such awe in the bereaved owner and me that we instinctively spoke in hushed whispers.  I’ve had no such gripping sensation as that since I gazed upon the dead city of Pompeii.  No longer can it be said that Europe possesses all the impressive ruins.’

“Angus boy grinned cheerfully now, feeling that this tribute was heartfelt.

“‘I suspect now,’ goes on the old boy, ’that when the wreckage is cleared away we shall find the mangled bodies of several that perished when the bolts descended from a clear sky upon the gay scene.’

“‘Perhaps under the tables,’ says young Angus, chirking up still more at this geniality.  ‘Two or three went down early and may still be there.’