"Hah! what's the use of having a parcel of young ones to be poor relations to the rest of the world?" asked he.
"What of that? You have to let them starve. Five hundred thousand starved in India last year, a country overrun with sacred snakes and animals of all sorts that they might have eaten. Three millions starved in China, and they tore up their English railway, the only thing that could save them. What are you going to do about it? Starving! Bet they are wallowing in the theatre every night," said Nathan.
"The theatre with Lawrence Barrett! I wish they might see anything so elevating. Perhaps _Othello_ might make some impression on them, such a stupendous temperance lecture it is!" I groaned.
"If _you_ would leave the theatre alone you wouldn't be quite so short as you are now," asserted Uncle Nate, almost popping open with contempt.
"'Short,' man! 'Short' in your throat!" shouted I, forgetting myself.
"Yes, short; and it's my opinion you've shorted me in this business."
I could not kick our uncle out of his premises, so I got out myself, not to return; and I left in debt to him as well as to the rest of the world. I went homeward. Though it was August, a cold wind blew from the lake, whipping the large, flapping leaves of the castor-bean plants in the front yards to rags. I quaffed the lake in the wet wind. "No wonder," I thought, "we're three parts water: our world is." A young fellow on the street-car platform smoked a cigar that smelled like pigweed, cabbage-stalks and other garden rubbish burning, and made me sick. He enjoyed it, though: in fact, all, including the street-car driver himself, were on that day more than usually engaged in the intense enjoyment of being Chicagoans. All but me, miserable. The very windows and pavements of our streets, being clean and cold, sent a chill to my bones.
When I reached home Lydia was pinning on her habergeon, her neck-armor of ribbons and lace, before the mirror. "What is this?" I asked, pointing to the suspicious note, still pinned to the cushion.
"That's the note that has to be found in my room in the play of _Lost in London_," she answered, turning the great lamps of her eyes on mine.
As I had nothing to say to this, I went and lay down on the sofa before the parlor-fire. Though a grate in January is a poor affair--I never knew any human being who really depended on one in winter to speak in praise of it--on a cool August day it is delicious. I fell into a warm doze before the fire, then into a series of agreeable naps. When Lydia said supper was ready I did not want any, and at bedtime I was too stiff to move easily.