"Ignorance of the law excuses no one!" murmured Wilfred.
"It don't excuse a lawyer!" she snorted. "I have an idea you don't know much more about the law--this kind of law, anyway--than I do. I bet it is against the law to go round a corner at more than four miles! Do you want to bet me?"
"No, I don't!" snapped Edgerton. "What you want is a police-court lawyer--if you're goin' in for this sort of thing."
"My Lord! What's this now, Simmons?" she raved as the butler deprecatingly made his appearance again with another paper.
"I think, madam," he answered soothingly, "that it's a summons for allowing the house man to use the hose on the sidewalk after eight A.M. Roony just brought it."
"H'm!" remarked Mr. Pumpelly. "Don't lead him to it again!"
"But I wouldn't have disturbed you if it hadn't been for a young gentleman who 'as called with another one regardin' the window boxes."
"What about window boxes?" moaned Mrs. Pumpelly.
"'E says," explained Simmons, "'e 'as a summons for you regardin' the window boxes, but that if you'd care to speak to him perhaps the matter might be adjusted--"
"Let's see the summons!" exclaimed Wilfred, coming to life.
"They're gettin' more polite," she commented ironically.
"'For violating Section Two Hundred and Fifty of Article Eighteen of Chapter Twenty-three in that you did place, keep and maintain upon a certain window sill of the premises now being occupied by you in the City of New York a window box for the cultivation or retention of flowers, shrubs, vines or other articles or things without the same being firmly protected by iron railings--'"
"Heavens," ejaculated Mr. Pumpelly, "there'll be somebody here in a minute complaining that I don't use the right length of shaving stick."
"I understand," remarked Mr. Edgerton, "that in a certain Western state they regulate the length of bed sheets!"
"What's that for?" asked Edna with sudden interest.
"About seeing this feller?" hurriedly continued Mr. Pumpelly. "Seems to me they've rather got you, Edna!"
"But what's the use seein' him?" she asked. "I'm summoned, ain't I?"
"Why not see the man?" advised Mr. Edgerton, gladly seizing this possibility of a diversion. "It cannot do any harm."
"Mr. Bonright Doon," answered Simmons encouragingly. "And he is a very pleasant-spoken young man."