Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/187

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
URN BURIAL
167

"Oh, you just reminded me!" cried Elaine. "I bought you a nice cigar to smoke after your dinner, and I forgot to give it to you."

From the mantelpiece she gave him a cigar with a Florona band.

"Why, isn't that nice!" said he, "That's the kind I always smoke. I didn't think you knew one brand from the other."

"I know more than you think, old man," she said.

When Harry came home the next night, he brought a bulky parcel with him.

"I'm awfully sorry about the urn, Brownie," he said. "I went to see the detectives to-day, and they think there's very little chance of getting it back; so I brought you this to take its place."

She opened the package. It was a big China coffee-jug of rose-and-white porcelain, flagrantly out of harmony with her silver and blue china.

"Honey," she said, "I think it's just lovely. It's ever and ever so much nicer than that old urn."

A week later, in the afternoon, the local chief of police called up Mrs. Bennett.

"Come down here to the police station," he said. "We've found your coffee-pot. The most

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.