Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/238

232 began to brag herself up, as women do, whenever you make them the slightest concession.

"Here, you men," she said, "have been trying for a whole week to get something out of Mr. Homos about his country, and you have left it to a poor, weak woman, at last, to think how to manage it. I do believe that you get so much interested in your own talk, when you are with him, that you don't let him get in a word, and that's the reason you haven't found out anything about Altruria, yet, from him."

In view of the manner in which she had cut in at Mrs. Camp's, and stopped Homos on the very verge of the only full and free confession he had ever been near making about Altruria, I thought this was pretty cool, but, for fear of worse, I said:

"You're quite right, Mrs. Makely. I'm sorry to say that there has been a shameful want of self-control among us, and that, if we learn anything at all from him, it will be because you have taught us how."

She could not resist this bit of taffy. She scarcely gave herself time to gulp it, before she said:

"Oh, it's very well to say that, now! But where would you have been, if I hadn't set my wits to work? Now, listen! It just popped into my mind, like an