Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/128

 yet I never enjoy it very much. Nothing ever seems to go right with me.

Bosh, old chap. Campaspe had often informed Paul that Cupid was pathetic, but somehow he had never sensed this quality in Mr. Lorillard before today. After all, one so seldom saw him on Nineteenth Street.

There's Campaspe, for instance, Cupid continued in his plaintive strain. I don't understand her and I never shall. You wouldn't either, he asserted, flushed and defiant, if you were married to her.

I understand Vera to the last eyelash. Paul grinned sardonically.

Well, there's a difference. You're not in love with Vera. I've always been wild about my wife and she treats me like. . . like. . . Cupid hesitated for a figure.

Like the father of your sons, Paul suggested.

Well, I don't know that she even does that, Cupid dubiously dissented. Then there was Zimbule, he went on, and Susan and Emily and Armide. ..

Armide?

Yes, it was her name that got me, too. She was French.

Did she burn the palace and escape on a hippogryph? Paul demanded.

I'm not sure about the hippogryph, but she certainly burned the palace. She burned it last week. The little man sighed.