Morris, who engaged in the pastime with the same earnestness that he gave to every other pursuit in which he happened to be interested, was, as might be expected, getting the best of the encounter.
"Won't you take a couple of bisques, dear ?" he asked affectionately, after a while.

"I don't like always beating you by such a lot." "I'd die first," she answered; "bisques are the badge of advertised inferiority and a mark of the giver's contempt." "Stuff!" said Morris.
"Stuff, indeed! As though it wasn't bad enough to be beaten at all; but to be beaten with bisques!" "That's another argument," said Morris.

"First you say you are too proud to accept them, and next that you won't accept them because it is worse to be defeated with points than without them." "Anyway, if you had the commonest feelings of humanity you wouldn't beat me," replied Mary, adroitly shifting her ground for the third time.
"How can I help it if you won't have the bisques ?" "How?
By pretending that you were doing your best, and letting me win all the same, of course; though if I caught you at it I should be furious.

But what's the use of trying to teach a blunt creature like you tact?
My dear Morris, I assure you I do not believe that your efforts at deception would take in the simplest-minded cow.

Why, even Dad sees through you, and the person who can't impose upon my Dad----.