_Mrs. Fountain_: "How coarse! Well, my dear, I don't know where you
picked up your bachelor friends. I hope this is the last of them."
_Fountain_: "Hazard's the only one who has survived your rigorous
treatment. But he always had a passion for cold shoulder, poor fellow.
As bath-robes go, this isn't bad." He gets his arms into it, and walks
up and down. "Heigh?"
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, it is pretty good. But the worst of Christmas
is that it rouses up all your old friends."
_Fountain_: "They feel so abnormally good, confound them. I suppose
poor old Hazard half killed himself looking this thing up and building
the joke to go with it."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, take it off, now, and come help me with the
children's presents. You're quite forgetting about them, and it'll be
morning and you'll have the little wretches swarming in before you can
turn round. Dear little souls! I can sympathize with their impatience,
of course. But what are you going to do with these bath-robes? You
can't wear _four_ bath-robes."
_Fountain_: "I can change them every day. But there ought to be seven.
This hood is rather a new wrinkle, though, isn't it? I suppose it's
for a voyage, and you pull it up over your head when you come through
the corridor back to your stateroom. We shall have to go to Europe,
Lucy."
_Mrs. Fountain_: "I would go to Asia, Africa, and Oceanica, to escape
another Christmas. Now if there are any more bath-robes-- Come in,
Maggie."