u had gone. I am very much engaged in writing a paper on modern antiquities."
I murmured some sort of an apology for my untimely interruption.
"I am so absorbed in my great work," she explained, "that I am oblivious to all else. I have the rare and great gift of concentration in a marked degree."
I was quite sure of this fact. She took another pencil from a supply box and resumed her literary occupation. As my presence seemed of so little moment, I lingered.
"Mother," shouted one of the boys, snatching the pencil from her grasp, "I'm hungry. I didn't have any supper."
"Yes, you did!" she asserted. "I saw Gladys give you a bowl of bread and milk."
"Emerald took it away from me and drank it up."
"Didn't neither!" denied a shaggy looking boy. "I spilled it."
He accompanied this denial by a fierce punch in his accuser's ribs.
"Here!" said the author of Modern Antiquities, taking a nickel from her pocket, "go get yourself some popcorn, Demetrius."
