By Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896)
[From Puck, July 30, 1890. Republished in the volume, Short Sixes: Stories to Be Read
While the Candle Burns (1891), by Henry Cuyler Bunner; copyright, 1890, by Alice
Larned Bunner; reprinted by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner'a Sons.]
"They certainly are nice people," I assented to my wife's observation, using the colloquial
phrase with a consciousness that it was anything but "nice" English, "and I'll bet that their
three children are better brought up than most of----"
"Two children," corrected my wife.
"My dear, she said there were two."
"You've simply forgotten. I'm sure she told me they had only two--a boy and a girl."
"Well, I didn't enter into particulars."
"No, dear, and you couldn't have understood him. Two children."
"All right," I said; but I did not think it was all right. As a near-sighted man learns by
enforced observation to recognize persons at a distance when the face is not visible to the
normal eye, so the man with a bad memory learns, almost unconsciously, to listen
carefully and report accurately. My memory is bad; but I had not had time to forget that
Mr. Brewster Brede had told me that afternoon that he had three children, at present left
in the care of his mother-in-law, while he and Mrs. Brede took their summer vacation.
"Two children," repeated my wife; "and they are staying with his aunt Jenny."
"He told me with his mother-in-law," I put in. My wife looked at me with a serious
expression. Men may not remember much of what they are told about children; but any
man knows the difference between an aunt and a mother-in-law.
"But don't you think they're nice people?" asked my wife.
"Oh, certainly," I replied. "Only they seem to be a little mixed up about their children."
"That isn't a nice thing to say," returned my wife. I could not deny it.
