"Is it de sorrows of our little contry dat bray upon your spirit? De difficulty of gonversations mit de Herr Bresident? I imblore you, Frau Quackenbush, be confidential in me. Ve be soch friends, ve dance, ve make insinuations. See, ve haf pretty gustom of Dlyria, vear a favour for friends. You brace up, not distress de Herr Bresident mit dese griefs, I gif you my trophy. Please, you vear it for me?"
He plucked the loosely pinned epaulette from his coat and offered it gallantly. With bleared eyes she could hardly see it, and recoiled with a choking cry.
"What is it, more goldenrod? Take it away, it's killing me! The whole house is full of it. Send upstairs for my atomizer, I'm suffocating."
A light broke upon the distracted Colonel. Like a man putting out a fire he leaped to his feet, rang the bell, then seized the bundles of goldenrod lavishly displayed in every vase and hurled them through the open door far across the terrace.
"It's my hay fever," said Frau Quackenbush
