conceit of the joke-maker, “haf you guessed him? ‘Vat kind of a hen lays der longest?’”
“Er—why, I think so,” said Bill, rubbing a servile chin. “I think so, Mr. Hildebrant—the one that lives the longest— Is that right?”
“Nein!” said Hildebrant, shaking his head violently. “You haf not guessed der answer.”
Bill passed on and donned a bed-tick apron and bachelorhood.
In came the young man of the Arabian Night’s fiasco—pale, melancholy, hopeless.
“Vell,” said Hildebrant, “haf you guessed him? ‘Vat kind of a hen lays der longest?’”
Simmons regarded him with dull savagery in his eye. Should he curse this mountain of pernicious humor—curse him and die? Why should—But there was Laura.
Dogged, speechless, he thrust his hands into his coat pockets and stood. His hand encountered the strange touch of the Margrave’s card. He drew it out and looked at it, as men about to be hanged look at a crawling fly. There was written on it in Quigg’s bold, round hand: “Good for one roast chicken to bearer.”
Simmons looked up with a flashing eye.
“A dead one!” said he.
“Goot!” roared Hildebrant, rocking the table with giant glee. “Dot is right! You gome at mine house at 8 o’clock to der party.”
