Page:The council of seven.djvu/48

 while I myself speak a little word to the Office. These rubs will arise, don't you know, in the best regulated families, as Lucifer, Son of the Morning, is said to have remarked on a much-celebrated occasion to President Wilson." With the air of a very kindly, rather boyish, old gentleman having a game of romps with a favorite grandchild, he forced her back to her chair and her book. And then with a kind of elephantine humor he made for the door.

At its threshold, with a hearty laugh, he turned again. "The revised version of this priceless old-world story is that it was Mr. President who really made the remark to the Eldest of the Sons of Time in old John Milton's—or was it old John Morley's?—hearing. However, the point is not material at the moment. A little word with the Office."

With the pleasant chuckle of one basking agreeably in the light of his own humor, he went out of the room.