creet'?
U-m-m, No!"
"Well, for heaven's sake!" said the Traveling Salesman.
"If--you--don't--call--that--an--indiscreet letter, what would you
call one?"
"Yes, sure," gasped the Young Electrician, "what would you call one?"
The way his lips mouthed the question gave an almost tragical purport
to it.
"What would I call an 'indiscreet letter'?" mused the Youngish Girl
slowly. "Why--why--I think I'd call an 'indiscreet letter' a letter
that was pretty much--of a gamble perhaps, but a letter that was
perfectly, absolutely legitimate for you to send, because it would be
your own interests and your own life that you were gambling with, not
the happiness of your wife or the honor of your husband. A letter,
perhaps, that might be a trifle risky--but a letter, I mean, that is
absolutely on the square!"
"But if it's absolutely 'on the square,'" protested the Traveling
Salesman, worriedly, "then where in creation does the '-
indiscreet'
come in?"
The Youngish Girl's jaw dropped. "Why, the 'indiscreet' part comes
in," she argued, "because you're not able to prove in advance, you
know, that the stakes you're gambling for are absolutely 'on the
square.' I don't know exactly how to express it, but it seems somehow
as though only the very little things of Life are offered in open
packages--that all the big things come sealed very tight. You can poke
them a little and make a guess at the shape, and you can rattle them a
little and make a guess at the size, but you can't ever open them and
prove them--until the money is paid down and gone forever from your
hands. But goodness me!" she cried, brightening perceptibly; "if you
were to put an advertisement in the biggest newspaper in the biggest
city in the world, saying: 'Every person who has ever written an
indiscreet letter in his life is hereby invited to attend a
mass-meeting'--and if people