“Well, I never did!” exclaimed the guest; “this dinner ought to be put in a book!”

“We’ll put it in ourselves first,” said Mitchell.  “I never believe in booking any attraction until it has been tried on a select few.  Burnett having selected me for one of this few, I vote we begin on the salad.”

They began forthwith.

Aunt Mary suddenly stopped eating.

“Some one called,” she said.

“It’s the parrot,” said Jack; “I heard him before.”

“What does he say?” said Mitchell.

“Listen and you’ll find out,” said Jack.

They all listened and presently the parrot said solemnly: 

“Now see what you’ve done!” and relapsed into silence.

“What does he mean?” Aunt Mary asked.

“He’s referring to his own affairs,” said Burnett; “come on—­let’s get coffee now!”

They all adjourned to a tiny room lined with posters and decorated with pipe racks, and there had ice cream in the form of bulls and bears, and coffee of the strongest variety.  And then cordials and cigarettes.

“Now, where shall we go to first?” asked Burnett when all were well lit up.  No one would have guessed that he had ever felt used up in all his life before.

“To a roof garden,” said Mitchell.  “We’ll go to a roof garden first, and then we’ll go to more roof gardens, and after that if the spirit moves we’ll go to yet a few roof gardens in addition.  We’ll show our dear aunt what wonders can be done with roofs, and to-morrow she’ll wonder what was done with her.”

“That’s the bill,” said Clover, “and let’s go now.  I can see from the general manner of my mouse that he’s dying to get out and make his way in the wide world.”

“Mine the same,” said Mitchell; “by George, it worries me to see such restless, feverish manners in what I had supposed would be a quiet domestic companion.  It presages a distracted existence.  But come on.”

They all rose.

“Where are we goin’ now?” asked Aunt Mary.

“To a roof garden,” said Jack, “and we’re going to take the whole menagerie, Aunt Mary.  We’re going to get put in the papers.  That’s the great stunt,—­to get put in the papers.”

“But we’ll leave the megaphones,” said Mitchell.  “I won’t go about with a mouse and a megaphone.  People might think I looked silly.  People are so queer.”

“Put the mouse in the megaphone,” suggested Burnett.  “That’s the way my mother taught me to pack when I was a kid.  You put your tooth brush in a shoe, and the shoe in a sleeve and then turn the sleeve inside out.  Oh, I tell you—­what is home without a mother?—­Put the mouse in the megaphone and stop up both ends.  What are your hands and your mouth for?”

“Yes,” said Mitchell, “I think I see myself so handling a megaphone that the mouse doesn’t run out either end or into my mouth.  My mouth is a good mouth and it’s served me well and I won’t turn it over to a mouse at this late day.”