“But we’ll get over that of course in time,” put in Anna-Felicitas, “and we’ve got to start life now in earnest.”

“Well then,” said Mr. Twist, “will you two Annas kindly tell me what it is you propose to do next?”

“Next?  After tea?  Go and look at the sights.”

“I mean to-morrow,” said Mr. Twist.

“To-morrow,” said Anna-Rose, “we proceed to Boston.”

“To track the Clouston Sacks to their lair,” said Anna-Felicitas.

“Ah.  You’ve made up your minds to do that.  They’ve behaved abominably,” said Mr. Twist.

“Perhaps they missed the train,” said Anna-Felicitas mildly.

“It’s the proper course to pursue,” said Anna-Rose.  “To proceed to Boston.”

“I suppose it is,” said Mr. Twist, again thinking that the really proper and natural course was for him to have been able to take them to his mother.  Pity one’s mother wasn’t—­

He pulled himself up on the brink of an unfiliality.  He was on the verge of thinking it a pity one’s mother wasn’t a different one.

CHAPTER XII

“Then,” said Mr. Twist, “if this is all you’re going to see of New York, this one evening, let us go and look at it.”

He beckoned to the waiter who came up with the bill.  Anna-Rose pulled out her purse.  Mr. Twist put up his hand with severe determination.

“You’re my guest,” he said, “as long as I am with you.  Useless to protest, young lady.  You’ll not get me to belie my American manhood.  I only listened with half an ear to all the things you both said in the taxi, because I hadn’t recovered from the surprise of finding myself still with you instead of on the train for Clark, and because you both of you do say so very many things.  But understand once and for all that in this country everything female has to be paid for by some man.  I’m that man till I’ve left you on the Sack doorstep, and then it’ll be Sack—­confound him,” finished Mr. Twist suddenly.

And he silenced Anna-Rose’s protests, which persisted and were indignant, by turning on her with, an irascibility she hadn’t yet seen in him, and inquiring of her whether then she really wished to put him to public shame?  “You wouldn’t wish to go against an established custom, surely,” he said more gently.

So the twins gave themselves up for that one evening to what Anna-Felicitas called government by wealth, otherwise plutocracy, while reserving complete freedom of action in regard to Mr. Sack, who was, in their ignorance of his circumstances, an unknown quantity.  They might be going to be mothers’ helps in the Sack menage for all they knew,—­they might, they said, be going to be anything, from honoured guests to typists.

“Can you type?” asked Mr. Twist.

“No,” said the twins.