The Notched Hairpin Read Online Free

nothing to mollify my feelings .
    The play with so light a weapon as the lens having failed to draw me, heavy artillery was now brought to bear and provoke my curiosity. The portentous microscope was hauled into position and, to teach me procedure with treasures, the “object,” certainly not “of art,” was picked out of its case with tweezers and examined slowly from head to foot. Finally, while it lay in the microscope’s sacred and pure grips, Mr. M. did permit himself the liberty of poking at its handle end with a pin and examining, with special care, whatever piece of dust the pin could have picked up before it was raised to the rank of becoming an “exhibit.” Then, to see if by this time and all this play I had become agog with curiosity, he looked up and nodded. I saw no reason to nod back. And evidently seeing I was not to be soothed, he shut the box with a snap, carried it off like the reliquary of a newly interred saint, and locked it in his desk. Then at last, apparently becoming aware he had really been quite cavalier with my offer of courtesy, he remarked in his most ingratiating voice:
    â€œDo you know, I believe we both may need a small summer vacation. I have lately been scanning the advertisements of houses to be let for August, and I believe I now have a couple in view, either of which might suit us very well.”
    At that I “perked up,” as my nurse used to phrase it. And when the cunning old bird added, “The two which I am hoping you might come with me to look at are, as far as I can understand, twins—that is to say, they were both built by the same architect in the same year—built as a pair, I presume. The date, I am told, has been placed on each of them by the builder—1760.” Then I couldn’t help relaxing into the quite neat reply: “Perfect! Set between the French and the English Regencies, between the severity of Queen Anne and the sparse elegance of the Brothers Adam—they should be a perfect balance of taste.”
    Indeed, I was so mollified I was quite ready to run on with a really entertaining little impromptu essay on “1760 as the Balance of English Architectural Style.” And Mr. M. actually seemed inclined to listen, when, at my saying again my key word, “balance,” he spun round, went back to his desk, whisked out the little case from where he’d locked it and, disregarding all the instruction he might have had, turned over the little sarcophagus reverently, rolling out of it onto the tablecloth the object it had immured. Then, picking up a knife, he began to play an awkward game of giant spilikins, with table knife and paper knife, trying to pick up the latter on the edge of the former. He proved quite clumsy at this rather silly pastime. But at last, after a number of trials, he did get his present-by-post teeter-tottering on the blade of the table piece.
    â€œLook,” he said.
    Of course there was nothing to see, or at least to applaud.
    â€œDo you notice anything?” followed, and to my honest antiphon, “No,” all he replied was, “It would be convenient, I have often thought, if only cutlers would think to make table knives and forks that way, wouldn’t it?”
    To my perfunctory, “Which way?” he replied, “Properly balanced; so that they wouldn’t fall off the plate, because their center of gravity would lie not at the handle end but forward.”
    The whole subject was so trivial and dull and, I could not help feeling, done maybe to spoil my really rather generous attempt to turn his offer to be agreeable into a little piece of conversation that would have been truly instructive, that my patience again began to ebb sharply, and to avoid further provocation I asked, “May I hear more about those two houses?”
    And to show that I meant what I said, when he replied, “Yes, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go and see