information in the expression, "by the kind permission of the Rev. Mr.
Saltover," as a guarantee of good faith, but the widow would have none
of it. The invitations were duly written and dispatched.
"Suppose," suggested Spindler, with a sudden lugubrious
apprehension,--"suppose they shouldn't come?"
"Have no fear of that," said Mrs. Price, with a frank laugh.
"Or ef they was dead," continued Spindler.
"They couldn't all be dead," said the widow cheerfully.
"I've written to another cousin by marriage," said Spindler dubiously,
"in case of accident; I didn't think of him before, because he was
rich."
"And have you ever seen him either, Mr. Spindler?" asked the widow, with
a slight mischievousness.
"Lordy! No!" he responded, with unaffected concern.
Only one mistake was made by Mrs. Price in her arrangements for the
party. She had noticed what the simple-minded Spindler could never have
conceived,--the feeling towards him held by his old associates, and had
tactfully suggested that a general invitation should be extended to them
in the evening.
"You can have refreshments, you know, too, after the dinner, and games
and music."
"But," said the unsophisticated host, "won't the boys think I'm playing
it rather low down on them, so to speak, givin' 'em a kind o' second
table, as ef it was the tailings after a strike?"
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Price, with decision. "It's quite fashionable in
San Francisco, and just the thing to do."
To this decision Spindler, in his blind faith in the widow's management,
weakly yielded. An announcement in the "Weekly Banner" that, "On
Christmas evening Richard Spindler, Esq., proposed to entertain his
friends and fellow citizens at an 'at home,' in his own residence,"
not only widened the breach between him and the "boys," but awakened an
active resentment that only waited for an outlet. It was understood that
they were all coming; but that they should have "some fun out of it"
which might not coincide with Spindler's nor his relatives' sense of
humor seemed a foregone conclusion.
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