“ASTRAY.
A BREATH OF AIR.
50 CENTS.”
“It’s queer,” Helen remarked. “But it is not a double puzzle at all,
though the pieces have the same paper on both sides. One side is blank.
I suppose this is ASTRAY. Don’t you think so?”
“Astray?” I queried, puzzled.
“Oh,” she cried, in a disappointed, disheartened, almost querulous
tone. “I thought you would be so much struck with the resemblance. You
don’t seem to notice it at all. Why even the dress is identical!”
“The dress?” I repeated. “How many times have you done this?”
“Only this once,” she said. “I had just finished it when I heard your
key in the lock.”
“I should have thought,” I commented, “that it would have been more
interesting to do it face up first.”
“Face up!” She cried. “It is face up.”
Her air of scornful superiority completely shook me out of my sedulous
consideration of a moment before.
“Nonsense,” I said, “that’s the back of the puzzle. There are no colors
there. It’s all pink.”
“Pink!” she exclaimed pointing. “Do you call that pink!”
“Certainly it’s pink,” I asserted.
“Don’t you see there the white of the old man’s beard,” she queried,
pointing again. “And there the black of his boots? And there the red of
the little girl’s dress?”
“No,” I declared. “I don’t see anything of the kind. It’s all pink.
There isn’t any picture there at all.”
“No picture!” she cried. “Don’t you see the old man leading the child
by the hand?”
“No,” I said harshly, “I don’t see any picture and you know I don’t.
There isn’t any picture there. I can’t make out what you are driving
at. It seems a senseless joke.”
“Joke! I joke!” Helen half whispered. The tears came into her eyes.
“You are cruel,” she said, “and I thought you would be struck by the
resemblance.”