They danced.

Noble was conscious of her within his clasping arm, but conscious of her as nothing human. The fluffy white bodice pressed by his hand seemed to be that of some angel doll; the charming shoulder that sometimes touched his was made of a divine mist. Only the pretty head, close to his, was actual; the black-sapphire eyes gave him a little blue-black glance, now and then, and seemed to laugh.

In truth, they did, though Julia's lips remained demure. So far as Noble was able to comprehend what he was doing, he was floating rhythmically to a faint, far music; but he was almost unconscious, especially from the knees down. But to the eye of observers incapable of perceiving that Noble was floating, it appeared that he was out of step most of the time, and danced rather hoppingly. However, these mannerisms were no novelty with him, and it cannot be denied that girls at dances usually hurried impulsively away to speak to somebody when they saw him coming. One such creature even went so far as to whisper to Julia now, during a collision: "How'd you get caught?"

Julia was loyal; she gave no sign of comprehension, but valiantly swung onward with Noble, bumped and bumping everywhere, in spite of the most extraordinary and graceful dexterity on her part.

"That's one reason she's such a terrible belle," a damsel whispered to another.

"What is?"

"The way she'll be just as nice to anybody like Noble Dill as she is to anybody," said the first. "Look at her now: she won't laugh at him a bit, though everybody else is."

"Well, I wouldn't laugh either," said the other. "Not in Julia's position. I'd be too busy being afraid."

"What of?"

"Of getting a sprained ankle!"

It is well that telepathy remains, as a science, lethargic. Speculation sets before us the prospect of a Life Beyond in which every thought is communicated without the intervention of speech: a state wherein all neighbours and neighbourhoods would promptly be dispersed and few friendships long endure, one fears. If to Noble Dill's active consciousness had penetrated merely the things thought about him and his dancing, in this one short period of time before the music for that dance stopped, he might easily have been understood if he had hurried forth, obtained explosives, and blown up the place, himself indeed included. As matters providentially were in reality, when the music stopped he stood confounded: he thought the dance had just begun.

His mouth remained open until the necessary gestures of articulation intermittently closed it as he said: "Oh! That was divine!"

Too-gentle Julia agreed.

"You said I could have part of some in between the first and last," he reminded her. "Can I have the first part of the next?"

She laughed. "I'm afraid not. The next is Mr. Clairdyce's and I really promised him I wouldn't give any of his away or let anybody cut in."

"Well, then," said Noble, frowning a little, "would you be willing for me to cut in on the third?"

"I'm afraid not. That's Newland Sanders', and I promised him the same thing."

"Well, the one after that?"

"No, that one's Mr. Clairdyce's, too."

"It is?" Noble was greatly disturbed.

"Yes."

"Two that quick with old Baldy Clairdyce!" he exclaimed, raising his voice, but unaware of the fervour with which he spoke. "Two with that old——"

"Sh, Noble," she said, though she laughed. "He isn't really old; he's just middle-aged, and only the least bit bald, just enough to be distinguished-looking."

"Well, you know what I think of him!" he returned with a vehemence not moderated. "I don't think he's distinguished-looking; I think he's simply and plainly a regular old——"

"Sh!" Julia warned him again. "He's standing with some people just behind us," she added.

"Well, then," said Noble, "can I cut in on the next one after that?"

She consulted a surreptitious little card. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait till quite a little later on, Noble. That one is poor Mr. Ridgely's. I promised him I wouldn't——"

"Then can I cut in on the next one after that?"

"It's Mr. Clairdyce's," said Julia—and she blushed.

"My goodness!" said Noble. "Oh, my goodness!"

"Sh! I'm afraid people——"

"Let's go out on the porch," said Noble, whose manner had suddenly become desperate. "Let's go out and get some air where we can talk this thing over."

"I'm afraid I'd better not just now," she returned, glancing over her shoulder. "You see, all the people aren't here yet."

"You've got an aunt here," said Noble, "and a sister-in-law and a little niece: I saw 'em. They can——"

"I'm afraid I'd better stay indoors just now," she said persuasively. "We can talk here just as well."

"We can't!" he insisted feverishly. "We can't, Julia! I've got something to say, Julia. Julia, you gave me the first dance and the last dance, and of course sitting together at supper, or whatever there is, and you know as well as I do that means it's just the same as if you weren't giving this party but it was somewhere else and I took you to it, and it's always understood you never dance more with anybody else than the one you went with, when you go with that person to a place, because that's the rights of it; and other towns it's just the same way; they do that way there, just the same as here; they do that way everywhere, because nobody else has got a right to cut in and dance more with you than the one you go with, when you goes to a place with that one. Julia, don't you see that's the regular way it is, and the only fair way it ought to be?"

"What?"

"Weren't you even listening?" he cried.

"Yes, indeed, but——"

"Julia," he said desperately, "let's go out on the porch. I want to explain just the way I feel. Let's go out on the porch, Julia. If we stay here, somebody's just bound to interrupt us any minute before I can explain the way I——"

But the prophecy was fulfilled even before it was concluded. A group of loudly chattering girls and their escorts of the moment bore down upon Julia, and shattered the tete-a-tete. Dislodged from Julia's side by a large and eager girl, whom he had hated ever since she was six years old and he five, Noble found himself staggering in a kind of suburb; for the large girl's disregard of him, as she shouldered in, was actually physical, and too powerful for him to resist. She wished to put her coarse arm round Julia's waist, it appeared, and the whole group burbled and clamoured: the party was perfictly glorious; so was the waxed floor; so was Julia, my dear, so was the music, the weather, and the din they made!

Noble felt that his rights were being outraged. Until the next dance began, every moment of her time was legally his—yet all he could even see of her was the top of her head. And the minutes were flying.

He stood on tiptoe, thrust his head forward over the large girl's odious shoulder, and shouted: "Julia! Let's go out on the porch!"

No one seemed to hear him.

"Julia——"

Boom! Rackety-Boom! The drummer walloped his drums; a saxophone squawked, and fiddles squealed. Hereupon appeared a tall authoritative man, at least thirty-two years old, and all swelled up with himself, as interpreted by Noble and several other friends of Julia's—though this, according to quite a number of people (all feminine) was only another way of saying that he was a person of commanding presence. He wore a fully developed moustache, an easy smile, clothes offensively knowing; and his hair began to show that scarcity which Julia felt gave him distinction—a curious theory, but natural to her age. What really did give this Clairdyce some air of distinction, however, was the calmness with which he walked through the group that had dislodged Noble Dill, and the assurance with which he put his arm about Julia and swept her away in the dance.

Noble was left alone in the middle of the floor, but not for long. Couples charged him, and he betook himself to the wall. The party, for him, was already ruined.

Sometimes, as he stood against the wall, there would be swirled to him, out of all the comminglements of other scents, a faint, faint hint of heliotrope and then Julia would be borne masterfully by, her flying skirts just touching him. And sometimes, out of the medley of all other sounds, there would reach his ear a little laugh like a run of lightly plucked harp strings, and he would see her shining dark hair above her partner's shoulder as they swept again near him for an instant. And always, though she herself might be concealed from him, he could only too painfully mark where she danced: the overtopping head of the tall Clairdyce was never lost to view. The face on the front part of that disliked head wore continuously a confident smile, which had a bad effect on Noble. It seemed to him desecration that a man with so gross a smile should be allowed to dance with Julia. And that she should smile back at her partner, and with such terrible kindness—as Noble twice saw her smile—this was like a calamity happening to her white soul without her knowing it. If she should ever marry that man—well, it would be the old story: May and December! Noble shuddered, and the drums, the fiddles, the bass fiddle, and the saxophone seemed to have an evil sound.

When the music stopped he caromed hastily through the room toward Julia, but she was in a thicket of her guests when he arrived, and for several moments Mr. Clairdyce's broad back kept intervening—almost intentionally, it seemed. When Noble tried to place himself in a position to attract Julia's attention, this back moved, too, and Noble's nose but pressed black cloth. And the noise everybody made was so baffling that, in order to be heard, Julia herself was shouting. Finally Noble contrived to squirm round the obtrusive back, and protruded his strained face among all the flushed and laughing ones.

"Julia, I got to——" he began.

But this was just at the climax of a story that three people were telling at the same time, Julia being one of them, and he received little attention.

"Julia," he said hoarsely; "I got something I want to tell you about——"

He raised his voice: "Julia, come on! Let's go out on the porch!"

Nobody even knew that he was there. Nevertheless, the tall and solid Clairdyce was conscious of him, but only, it proved, as one is conscious of something to rest upon. His elbow, a little elevated, was at the height of Noble's shoulder, and this heavy elbow, without its owner's direct or active cognizance, found for itself a comfortable support. Then, as the story reached its conclusion, this old Clairdyce joined the general mirth so heartily as to find himself quite overcome, and he allowed most of his weight to depend upon the supported elbow. Noble sank like feathers.

"Here! What you doin'?" he said hotly. "I'll thank you to keep off o' me!"

Old Baldy recovered his balance without being aware what had threatened it, while his elbow, apparently of its own volition, groped for its former pedestal. Noble evaded it, and pushed forward.

"Julia," he said. "I got to say some——"

But the accursed music began again, and horn-rimmed Newland Sanders already had his arm about her waist. They disappeared into the ruck of dancers.

"Well, by George!" said Noble. "By George, I'm goin' to do something!"



CHAPTER TWELVE

He went outdoors and smoked Orduma cigarettes, one after the other. Dances and intermissions succeeded each other but Noble had "enough of that, for one while!" So he muttered.

And remembering how Julia had told him that he was killing himself with cigarettes, "All right," he said now, as he bitterly lighted his fifth at the spark of the fourth;—"I hope I will!"

"Lot o' difference it'd make!" he said, as he lighted the eighth of a series that must, all told, have contained nearly as much tobacco as a cigar. And, leaning back against the trunk of one of the big old walnut trees in the yard, he gazed toward the house, where the open window nearest him splashed with colour like a bright and crowded aquarium. "To her, anyway!" he added, with a slight remorse, remembering that his mother had frequently shown him evidences of affection.

Yes, his mother would care, and his father and sisters would be upset, but Julia—when the friends of the family were asked to walk by for a last look, would she be one? What optimism remained to him presented a sketch of Julia, in black, borne from the room in the arms of girl friends who tried in vain to hush her; but he was unable to give this more hopeful fragment an air of great reality. Much more probably, when word came to her that he had smoked himself to death, she would be a bride, dancing at Niagara Falls with her bald old husband—and she would only laugh and pause to toss a faded rose out of the window, and then go right on dancing. But perhaps, some day, when tears had taught her the real meaning of life with such a man——

"You—wow!"

Noble jumped. From the darkness of the yard beside the house there came a grievous howl, distressful to the spinal marrow, a sound of animal pain. It was repeated even more passionately, and another voice was also heard, one both hoarsely bass and falsetto in the articulation of a single syllable. "Ouch!" There were sounds of violent scuffing, and the bass-falsetto voice cried: "What's that you stuck me with?" and another: "Drag her! Drag her back by her feet!"

These alarms came from the almost impenetrable shadows of the small orchard beside the house; and from the same quarter was heard the repeated contact of a heavy body, seemingly wooden or metallic, with the ground; but high over this there rose a shrieking: "Help! Help! Oh, hay-yulp!" This voice was girlish. "Hay-yulp!"

Noble dashed into the orchard, and at once fell prostrate upon what seemed a log, but proved to be a large and solidly packed ice-cream freezer lying on its side.

Dark forms scrambled over the fence and vanished, but as Noble got to his feet he was joined by a dim and smallish figure in white—though more light would have disclosed a pink sash girdling its middle. It was the figure of Miss Florence Atwater, seething with furious agitations.

"Vile thieves!" she panted.

"Who?" Noble asked, brushing at his knees, while Florence made some really necessary adjustments of her own attire. "Who were they?"

"It was my own cousin, Herbert, and that nasty little Henry Rooter and their gang. Herbert thinks he hass to act perfectly horrable all the time, now his voice is changing!" said Florence, her emotion not abated. "Tried to steal this whole ice-cream freezer off the back porch and sneak it over the fence and eat it! I stuck a pretty long pin in Herbert and two more of 'em, every bit as far as it would go." And in the extremity of her indignation, she added: "The dirty robbers!"

"Did they hurt you?"

"You bet your life they didn't!" the child responded. "Tried to drag me back to the house! By the feet! I guess I gave 'em enough o' that!"

Then, tugging the prostrate freezer into an upright position, she exclaimed darkly: "I expect I gave ole Mister Herbert and some of the others of 'em just a few kicks they won't be in such a hurry to forget!" And in spite of his own gloomy condition, Noble was able, upon thinking over matters, to spare some commiseration for Herbert and his friend, that nasty little Henry Rooter and their gang. They seemed to have been at a disadvantage.

"I suppose I'd better carry the freezer back to the kitchen porch," he said. "Somebody may want it."

"'Somebody'!" Florence exclaimed. "Why, there's only two of these big freezers, and if I hadn't happened to suspeck somep'n and be layin' for those vile thieves, half the party wouldn't get any!" And as an afterthought, when Noble had pantingly restored the heavy freezer to its place by the kitchen door, she said: "Or else they'd had to have such little saucers of it nobody would of been any way like satisfied, and prob'ly all the fam'ly that's here assisting would of had to go without any at all. That'd 'a' been the worst of it!"

She opened the kitchen door, and to those within explained loudly what dangers had been averted, directing that both freezers be placed indoors under guard; then she rejoined Noble, who was walking slowly back to the front yard.

"I guess it's pretty lucky you happened to be hangin' around out here," she said. "I guess that's about the luckiest thing ever happened to me. The way it looks to me, I guess you saved my life. If you hadn't chased 'em away, I wouldn't been a bit surprised if that gang would killed me!"

"Oh, no!" said Noble. "They wouldn't——"

"You don't know 'em like I do," the romantic child assured him. "I know that gang pretty well, and I wouldn't been a bit surprised. I wouldn't been!"

"But——"

She tossed her head, signifying recklessness.

"Guess 'twouldn't make much difference to anybody particular, whether they did or not," said this strange Florence.

Noble regarded her with astonishment; they had reached the front yard, and paused under the trees where the darkness was mitigated by the light from the shining windows. "Why, you oughtn't to talk that way, Florence," he said. "Think of your mamma and papa and your—and your Aunt Julia."

She tossed her head again. "Pooh! They'd all of 'em just say: 'Good ribbons to bad rubbish,' I guess!" However, she seemed far from despondent about this; in fact, she was naturally pleased with her position as a young girl saved from the power of ruffians by a rescuer who was her Very Ideal. "I bet if I died, they wouldn't even have a funeral," she said cheerfully. "They'd proba'ly just leave me lay."

The curiosities of the human mind are found not in high adventure: they are everywhere in the commonplace. Never for a moment did it strike Noble Dill that Florence's turn to the morbid bore any resemblance to his recent visions of his own funeral. He failed to perceive that the two phenomena were produced out of the same laboratory jar and were probably largely chemical, at that.

"Why, Florence!" he exclaimed. "That's a dreadful way to feel. I'm sure your—your Aunt Julia loves you."

"Oh, well," Florence returned lightly;—"maybe she does. I don't care whether she does or not." And now she made a deduction, the profundity of which his condition made him unable to perceive. "It makes less difference to anybody whether their aunts love 'em or not than whether pretty near anybody else at all does."

"But not your Aunt Julia" he urged. "Your Aunt Julia——"

"I don't care whether she does than any other aunt I got," said Florence. "All of 'em's just aunts, and that's all there is to it."

"But, Florence, your Aunt Julia——"

"She's nothin' in the world but my aunt," Florence insisted, and her emphasis showed that she was trying hard to make him understand. "She's just the same as all of 'em. I don't get anything more from her than I do from any the rest of 'em."

Her auditor was dumfounded, but not by Florence's morals. The cold-blooded calculation upon which her family affections seemed to be founded, this aboriginal straightforwardness of hers, passed over him. What shocked him was her appearing to see Julia as all of a piece with a general lot of ordinary aunts. Helplessly, he muttered again:

"But your Aunt Julia——"

"There she is now," said Florence, pointing to the window nearest them. "They've stopped dancing for a while so's that ole Mister Clairdyce can get a chance to sing somep'n. Mamma told me he was goin' to."

Dashing chords sounded from a piano invisible to Noble and his companion; the windows exhibited groups of deferentially expectant young people; and then a powerful barytone began a love song. From the yard the singer could not be seen, but Julia could be: she stood in the demurest attitude; and no one needed to behold the vocalist to know that the scoundrel was looking pointedly and romantically at her.

"Dee-urra-face that holds soswee tasmile for me, Wairyew nah tmine how darrrk the worrrl dwooed be!"

To Noble, suffering at every pore, this was less a song than a bellowing; and in truth the confident Mr. Clairdyce did "let his voice out," for he was seldom more exhilarated than when he shook the ceiling. The volume of sound he released upon his climaxes was impressive, and the way he slid up to them had a great effect, not indoors alone, but upon Florence, enraptured out under the trees.

"Oh, isn't it be-you-tiful!" she murmured.

Her humid eyes were fixed upon Noble, who was unconscious of the honour. Florence was susceptible to anything purporting to be music, and this song moved her. Throughout its delivery from Mr. Clairdyce's unseen chest, her large eyes dwelt upon Noble, and it is not at all impossible that she was applying the tender words to him, just as the vehement Clairdyce was patently addressing them to Julia. On he sang, while Noble, staring glassily at the demure lady, made a picture of himself leaping unexpectedly through the window, striding to the noisy barytone, striking him down, and after stamping on him several times, explaining: "There! That's for your insolence to our hostess!" But he did not actually permit himself these solaces; he only clenched and unclenched his fingers several times, and continued to listen.

"Geev a-mee yewr ra-smile, The luv va-ligh TIN yew rise, Life cooed not hold a fairrerr paradise. Geev a-mee the righ to luv va-yew all the wile, My worrlda for AIV-vorr, The sunshigh NUV vyewr-ra-smile!"

The conclusion was thunderous, and as a great noise under such circumstances is an automatic stimulant of enthusiasm, the applause was thunderous too. Several girls were unable to subdue their outcries of "Charming!" and "Won-derf'l!"—not even after Mr. Clairdyce had begun to sing the same song as an encore.

When this was concluded, a sigh, long and deep, was heard under the trees. It came from Florence. Her eyes, wanly gleaming, like young oysters in the faint light, were still fixed on Noble; and there can be little doubt that just now there was at least one person in the world, besides his mother, who saw him in a glamour as something rare, obs, exquisite, and elegant. "I think that was the most be-you-tiful thing I ever heard!" she said; and then, noting a stir within the house, she became practical. "They're starting refreshments," she said. "We better hurry in, Mr. Dill, so's to get good places. Thanks to me, there's plenty to go round."

She moved toward the house, but, observing that he did not accompany her, paused and looked back. "Aren't you goin' to come in, Mr. Dill?"

"I guess not. Don't tell any one I'm out here."

"I won't. But aren't you goin' to come in for——"

He shook his head. "No, I'm going to wait out here a while longer."

"But," she said, "it's refreshments!"

"I don't want any. I—I'm going to smoke some more, instead."

She looked at him wistfully, then even more wistfully toward the house. Evidently she was of a divided mind: her feeling for Noble fought with her feeling for "refreshments." Such a struggle could not endure for long: a whiff of coffee conjured her nose, and a sound of clinking china witched her ear. "Well," she said, "I guess I ought to have some nourishment," and betook herself hurriedly into the house.

Noble lit another Orduma. He would follow the line of conduct he had marked out for himself: he would not take his place by Julia for the supper interval—perhaps that breach of etiquette would "show" her. He could see her no longer—she had moved out of range—but he imagined her, asking everywhere: "Hasn't any one seen Mr. Dill?" And he thought of her as biting her lip nervously, perhaps, and replying absently to sallies and quips—perhaps even having to run upstairs to her own room to dash something sparkling from her eyes, and, maybe, to look angrily in her glass for an instant and exclaim, "Fool!" For Julia was proud, and not used to be treated in this way.

He felt the least bit soothed, and, lightly flicking the ash from his Orduma with his little finger, an act indicating some measure of restored composure, he strolled to the other side of the house and brought other fields of vision into view through other windows. Abruptly his stroll came to an end.

There sat Julia, flushed and joyous, finishing her supper in company with old Baldy Clairdyce, Newland Sanders, George Plum, seven or eight other young gentlemen, and some inconsidered adhering girls—the horrible barytone sitting closest of all to Julia. Moreover, upon that very moment the orchestra, in the hall beyond, thought fit to pay the recent vocalist a sickening compliment, and began to play "The Sunshine of Your Smile."

Thereupon, with Julia herself first taking up the air in a dulcet soprano, all of the party, including the people in the other rooms, sang the dreadful song in chorus, the beaming Clairdyce exerting such demoniac power as to be heard tremendously over all other voices. He had risen for this effort, and to Noble, below the window, everything in his mouth was visible.

The lone listener had a bitter thought, though it was a longing, rather than a thought. For the first time in his life he wished that he had adopted the profession of dentistry.

"Geev a-mee the righ to luv va-yew ALL the wile, My worrrlda for AIV-vorr, The sunshigh NUV vyewr-ra-smile!"

The musicians swung into dance music; old Baldy closed the exhibition with an operatic gesture (for which alone, if for nothing else, at least one watcher thought the showy gentleman deserved hanging), and this odious gesture concluded with a seizure of Julia's hand. She sprang up eagerly; he whirled her away, and the whole place fluctuated in the dance once more.

"Well, now," said Noble, between his teeth—"now, I am goin' to do something!"

He turned his back upon that painful house, walked out to the front gate, opened it, passed through, and looked southward. Not quite two blocks away there shone the lights of a corner drug store, still open to custom though the hour was nearing midnight. He walked straight to the door of this place, which stood ajar, but paused before entering, and looked long and nervously at the middle-aged proprietor who was unconscious of his regard, and lounged in a chair, drowsily stroking a cat upon his lap. Noble walked in.

"Good evening," said the proprietor, rising and brushing himself languidly. "Cat hairs," he said apologetically. "Sheddin', I reckon." Then, as he went behind the counter, he inquired: "How's the party goin' off?"

"It's—it's——" Noble hesitated. "I stepped in to—to——"

The druggist opened a glass case. "Aw right," he said, blinking, and tossed upon the counter a package of Orduma cigarettes. "Old Atwater'd have convulsions, I reckon," he remarked, "if he had to lay awake and listen to all that noise. Price ain't changed," he added, referring humorously to the purchase he mistakenly supposed Noble wished to make. "F'teen cents, same as yesterday and the day before."

Noble placed the sum upon the counter. "I—I was thinking——" He gulped.

"Huh?" said the druggist placidly, for he was too sleepy to perceive the strangeness of his customer's manner.

Noble lighted an Orduma with an unsteady hand, leaned upon the counter, and inquired in a voice that he strove to make casual: "Is—is the soda fountain still running this late?"

"Sure."

"I didn't know," said Noble. "I suppose you have more calls for soda water than you do for—for—for real liquor?"

The druggist laughed. "Funny thing: I reckon we don't have more'n half the calls for real liquor than what we used to before we went dry."

Noble breathed deeply. "I s'pose you probably sell quite a good deal of it though, at that. By the glass, I mean—such as a glass of something kind of strong—like—like whiskey. That is, I sort of supposed so. I mean I thought I'd ask you about this."

"No," said the druggist, yawning. "It never did pay well—not on this corner, anyhow. Once there used to be a little money in it, but not much." He roused himself somewhat. "Well, it's about twelve. Anything you wanted 'cept them Ordumas before I close up?"

Noble gulped again. He had grown pale. "I want——" he said abruptly, then his heart seemed to fail him. "I want a glass of——" Once more he stopped and swallowed. His shoulders drooped, and he walked across to the soda fountain. "Well," he said, "I'll take a chocolate sundae."

The thought of going back to Julia's party was unendurable, yet a return was necessary on account of his new hat, the abandonment of which he did not for a moment consider. But about half way, as he walked slowly along, he noticed an old horse-block at the curbstone, and sat down there. He could hear the music at Julia's, sometimes loud and close at hand, sometimes seeming to be almost a mile away. "All right!" he said, so bitter had he grown. "Dance! Go on and dance!"

... When finally he reentered Julia's gate, he shuffled up the walk, his head drooping, and ascended the steps and crossed the veranda and the threshold of the front door in the same manner.

Julia stood before him.

"Noble Dill!" she exclaimed.

As for Noble, his dry throat refused its office; he felt that he might never be able to speak to Julia again, even if he tried.

"Where in the world have you been all evening?" she cried.

"Why, Jew-Julia!" he quavered. "Did you notice that I was gone?"

"Did I 'notice'!" she said. "You never came near me all evening after the first dance! Not even at supper!"

"You wouldn't—you didn't——" he faltered. "You wouldn't do anything all evening except dance with that old Clairdyce and listen to him trying to sing."

But Julia would let no one suffer if she could help it; and she could always help Noble. She made her eyes mysterious and used a voice of honey and roses. "You don't think I'd rather have danced with him, do you, Noble?"

Immediately sparks seemed to crackle about his head. He started.

"What?" he said.

The scent of heliotrope enveloped him; she laughed her silver harp-strings laugh, and lifted her arms toward the dazzled young man. "It's the last dance," she said. "Don't you want to dance it with me?"

Then to the spectators it seemed that Noble Dill went hopping upon a waxed floor and upon Julia's little slippers; he was bumped and bumping everywhere; but in reality he floated in Elysian ether, immeasurably distant from earth, his hand just touching the bodice of an angelic doll.

Then, on his way home, a little later, with his new hat on the back of his head, his stick swinging from his hand, and a semi-fragrant Orduma between his lips, his condition was precisely as sweet as the condition in which he had walked to the party.

No echoes of "The Sunshine of Your Smile" cursed his memory—that lover's little memory fresh washed in heliotrope—and when his mother came to his door, after he got home, and asked him if he'd had "a nice time at the party," he said:

"Just glorious!" and believed it.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was a pretty morning, two weeks after Julia's Dance; and blue and lavender shadows, frayed with mid-summer sunshine, waggled gayly across the grass beneath the trees of the tiny orchard, but trembled with timidity as they hurried over the abnormal surfaces of Mrs. Silver as she sat upon the steps of the "back porch." Her right hand held in security one end of a leather leash; the other end of the leash was fastened to a new collar about the neck of an odd and fascinating dog. Seated upon the brick walk at her feet, he was regarding her with a gravity that seemed to discomfort her. She was unable to meet his gaze, and constantly averted her own whenever it furtively descended to his. In fact, her expression and manner were singular, denoting embarrassment, personal hatred, and a subtle bedazzlement. She could not look at him, yet could not keep herself from looking at him. There was something here that arose out of the depths of natural character; it was intrinsic in the two personalities, that is to say; and was in addition to the bitterness consequent upon a public experience, just past, which had been brought upon Mrs. Silver partly by the dog's appearance (in particular the style and colour of his hair) and partly by his unprecedented actions in her company upon the highway.

She addressed him angrily, yet with a profound uneasiness.

"Dog!" she said. "You ain't feelin' as skittish as whut you did, li'l while ago, is you? My glory! I dess would like to lay my han' to you' hide once, Mister! I take an' lam you this livin' minute if I right sho' you wouldn't take an' bite me."

She jerked the leash vindictively, upon which the dog at once "sat up" on his haunches, put his forepaws together above his nose, in an attitude of prayer, and looked at her inscrutably from under the great bang of hair that fell like a black chrysanthemum over his forehead. Beneath this woolly lambrequin his eyes were visible as two garnet sparks of which the coloured woman was only too nervously aware. She gasped.

"Look-a-here, dog, who's went an' ast you to take an' pray fer 'em?"

He remained motionless and devout.

"My goo'niss!" she said to him. "If you goin' keep on thisaway whut you is been, I'm goin' to up an' go way from here, ri' now!" Then she said a remarkable thing. "Listen here, Mister! I ain' never los' no gran' child, an' I ain' goin' 'dop' no stranger fer one, neither!"

The explanation rests upon the looks and manners of him whom she addressed. This dog was of a kind at the top of dog kingdoms. His size was neither insignificant nor great; probably his weight would have been between a fourth and a third of a St. Bernard's. He had the finest head for adroit thinking that is known among dogs; and he had an athletic body, the forepart muffled and lost in a mass of corded black fleece, but the rest of him sharply clipped from the chest aft; and his trim, slim legs were clipped, though tufts were left at his ankles, and at the tip of his short tail, with two upon his hips, like fanciful buttons of an imaginary jacket; for thus have such dogs been clipped to a fashion proper and comfortable for them ever since (and no doubt long before) an Imperial Roman sculptor so chiselled one in bas-relief. In brief, this dog, who caused Kitty Silver so much disquietude, as she sat upon the back steps at Mr. Atwater's, belonged to that species of which no Frenchman ever sees a specimen without smiling and murmuring: "Caniche!" He was that golden-hearted little clown of all the world, a French Poodle.

To arrive at what underlay Mrs. Silver's declaration that she had never lost a grandchild and had no intention of adopting a stranger in the place of one, it should be first understood that in many respects she was a civilized person. The quality of savagery, barbarism, or civilization in a tribe may be tested by the relations it characteristically maintains with domestic animals; and tribes that eat dogs are often inferior to those inclined to ceremonial cannibalism. Likewise, the civilization, barbarism, or savagery of an individual may be estimated by the same test, which sometimes gives us evidence of sporadic reversions to mud. Such reversions are the stomach priests: whatever does not minister to their own bodily inwards is a "parasite." Dogs are "parasites"; they should not live, because to fat and eat them somehow appears uncongenial. "Kill Dogs and Feed Pigs," they write to the papers, and, with a Velasquez available, would burn it rather than go chilly. "Kill dogs, feed pigs, and let me eat the pigs!" they cry, even under no great stress, these stern economists who have not noticed how wasteful the Creator is proved to be if He made themselves. They take the strictly intestinal view of life. It is not intelligent; parasite bacilli will get them in the end.

Mrs. Silver was not of these. True, she sometimes professed herself averse to all "animals," but this meant nothing more than her unwillingness to have her work increased by their introduction into the Atwater household. No; the appearance of the dog had stirred something queer and fundamental within her. All coloured people look startled the first time they see a French Poodle, but there is a difference. Most coloured men do not really worry much about being coloured, but many coloured women do. In the expression of a coloured man, when he looks at a black and woolly French Poodle, there is something fonder and more indulgent than there is in the expression of a coloured woman when she looks at one. In fact, when some coloured women see a French Poodle they have the air of being insulted.

Now, when Kitty Silver had first set eyes on this poodle, an hour earlier, she looked, and plainly was, dumfounded. Never in her life had she seen a creature so black, so incredibly black, or with hair so kinky, so incredibly kinky. Julia had not observed Mrs. Silver closely nor paused to wonder what thoughts were rousing in her mind, but bade her take the poodle forth for exercise outdoors and keep him strictly upon the leash. Without protest, though wearing a unique expression, Kitty obeyed; she walked round the block with this mystifying dog; and during the promenade had taken place the episode that so upset her nerves.

She had given a little jerk to the leash, speaking sharply to the poodle in reproach for some lingering near a wonderful sidewalk smell, imperceptible to any one except himself. Instantly the creature rose and walked beside her on his hind legs. He continued to parade in this manner, rapidly, but nevertheless as if casually, without any apparent inconvenience; and Mrs. Silver, never having seen a dog do such a thing before, for more than a yard or so, and then only under the pressure of many inducements, was unfavourably impressed. In fact, she had definitely a symptom of M. Maeterlinck's awed feeling when he found himself left alone with the talking horses: "With whom was she?"

"Look-a-here, dog!" she said breathlessly. "Who you tryin' to skeer? You ain't no person!"

And then a blow fell. It came from an elderly but ever undignified woman of her own race, who paused, across the street, and stood teetering from side to side in joyful agitation, as she watched the approach of Mrs. Silver with her woolly little companion beside her. When this smaller silhouette in ink suddenly walked upright, the observer's mouth fell open, and there was reason to hope that it might remain so, in silence, especially as several other pedestrians had stopped to watch the poodle's uncalled-for exhibition. But all at once the elderly rowdy saw fit to become uproarious.

"Hoopsee!" she shouted. "Oooh, Gran'ma!"

* * * * *

And so, when the poodle "sat up," unbid, to pray, while Kitty Silver rested upon the back steps, on her return from the excursion, she fiercely informed him that she had never lost a grandchild and that she would not adopt a stranger in place of one; her implication being that he, a stranger, had been suggested for the position and considered himself eligible for it.

He continued to pray, not relaxing a hair.

"Listen to me, dog," said Kitty Silver. "Is you a dog, or isn't you a dog? Whut is you, anyway?"

But immediately she withdrew the question. "I ain't astin' you!" she exclaimed superstitiously. "If you isn't no dog, don't you take an' tell me whut you is: you take an' keep it to you'se'f, 'cause I don' want to listen to it!"

For the garnet eyes beneath the great black chrysanthemum indeed seemed to hint that their owner was about to use human language in a human voice. Instead, however, he appeared to be content with his little exhibition, allowed his forepaws to return to the ground, and looked at her with his head wistfully tilted to one side. This reassured her and even somewhat won her. There stirred within her that curious sense of relationship evoked from the first by his suggestive appearance; fondness was being born, and an admiration that was in a way a form of Narcissism. She addressed him in a mollified voice:

"Whut you want now? Don' tell me you' hungry, 'cause you awready done et two dog biskit an' big saucer milk. Whut you stick you' ole black face crossways at me fer, honey?"

But just then the dog rose to look pointedly toward the corner of the house. "Somebody's coming," he meant.

"Who you spectin', li'l dog?" Mrs. Silver inquired.

Florence and Herbert came round the house, Herbert trifling with a tennis ball and carrying a racket under his arm. Florence was peeling an orange.

"For Heavenses' sakes!" Florence cried. "Kitty Silver, where on earth'd this dog come from?"

"B'long you' Aunt Julia."

"When'd she get him?"

"Dess to-day."

"Who gave him to her?"

"She ain't sayin'."

"You mean she won't tell?"

"She ain't sayin'," Kitty Silver repeated. "I ast her. I say, I say: 'Miss Julia, ma'am,' I say, 'Miss Julia, ma'am, who ever sen' you sech a unlandish-lookin' dog?' I say. All she say when I ast her: 'Nemmine!' she say, dess thataway. 'Nemmine!' she say. I reckon she ain't goin' tell nobody who give her this dog."

"He's certainly a mighty queer-lookin' dog," said Herbert. "I've seen a few like that, but I can't remember where. What kind is he, Kitty Silver?"

"Miss Julia tell me he a poogle dog."

"A poodle," Florence corrected her, and then turned to Herbert in supercilious astonishment. "A French Poodle! My goodness! I should think you were old enough to know that much, anyway—goin' on fourteen years old!"

"Well, I did know it," he declared. "I kind of knew it, anyhow; but I sort of forgot it for once. Do you know if he bites, Kitty Silver?"

She was noncommittal. "He ain't bit nobody yit."

"I don't believe he'll bite," said Florence. "I bet he likes me. He looks like he was taking a fancy to me, Kitty Silver. What's his name?"

"Gammire."

"What?"

"Gammire."

"What a funny name! Are you sure, Kitty Silver?"

"Gammire whut you' Aunt Julia tole me," Mrs. Silver insisted. "You kin go on in the house an' ast her; she'll tell you the same."

"Well, anyway, I'm not afraid of him," said Florence; and she stepped closer to the poodle, extending her hand to caress him. Then she shouted as the dog, at her gesture, rose to his hind legs, and, as far as the leash permitted, walked forward to meet her. She flung her arms about him rapturously.

"Oh, the lovely thing!" she cried. "He walks on his hind legs! Why, he's crazy about me!"

"Let him go," said Herbert. "I bet he don't like you any more than he does anybody else. Leave go of him, and I bet he shows he likes me better than he does you."

But when Florence released him, Gammire caressed them both impartially. He leaped upon one, then upon the other, and then upon Kitty Silver with a cordiality that almost unseated her.

"Let him off the leash," Florence cried. "He won't run away, 'cause the gates are shut. Let him loose and see what he'll do."

Mrs. Silver snapped the catch of the leash, and Gammire departed in the likeness of a ragged black streak. With his large and eccentric ears flapping back in the wind and his afterpart hunched in, he ran round and round the little orchard like a dog gone wild. Altogether a comedian, when he heard children shrieking with laughter, he circled the more wildly; then all upon an unexpected instant came to a dead halt, facing his audience, his nose on the ground between his two forepaws, his hindquarters high and unstooping. And, seeing they laughed at this, too, he gave them enough of it, then came back to Kitty Silver and sat by her feet, a spiral of pink tongue hanging from a wide-open mouth roofed with black.

Florence resumed the peeling of her orange.

"Who do you think gave Gammire to Aunt Julia?" she asked.

"I ain't stedyin' about it."

"Yes, but who do you guess?"

"I ain't——"

"Well, but if you had to be burned to death or guess somebody, who would you guess?"

"I haf to git burn' up," said Kitty Silver. "Ev'y las' caller whut comes here is give her some doggone animal awready. Mista Sammerses, he give her them two Berjum cats, an' ole Mister Ridgways whut los' his wife, he give you' Aunt Julia them two canaries that tuck an' hopped out the cage an' then out the window, las' week, one day, when you' grampaw was alone in the room with 'em; an' Mista George Plummers, he give her that Airydale dog you' grampaw tuck an' give to the milkman; an' Mista Ushers, he give her them two pups whut you' grampaw tuck an' skeer off the place soon as he laid eyes on 'em, an' thishere Mista Clairidge, he give her that ole live allagatuh from Florida whut I foun' lookin' at me over the aidge o' my kitchen sink—ugly ole thing!—an' you' grampaw tuck an' give it to the greenhouse man. Ain't none nem ge'lmun goin' try an' give her no mo' animals, I bet! So how anybody goin' guess who sen' her thishere Gammire? Nobody lef' whut ain't awready sen' her one an' had the gift spile."

"Yes, there is," said Florence.

"Who?"

"Noble Dill."

"That there li'l young Mista Dills?" Kitty Silver cried. "Listen me! Thishere dog 'spensive dog."

"I don't care; I bet Noble Dill gave him to her."

Mrs. Silver hooted. "Go way! That there young li'l Mista Dills, he ain' nev' did show no class, no way nor no time. He be hunderd year ole b'fo' you see him in autamobile whut b'long to him. Look at a way some nem fine big rich men like Mista Clairidge an' Mista Ridgways take an' th'ow they money aroun'! New necktie ev'y time you see 'em; new straw hat right spang the firs' warm day. Ring do' bell. I say, I say: 'Walk right in, Mista Ridgways.' Slip me dollah bill dess like that! Mista Sammerses an' Mista Plummers, an' some nem others, they all show class. Look Mista Sammerses' spectickles made turtle back; fancy turtle, too. I ast Miss Julia; she tell me they fancy turtle. Gol' rim spectickles ain't in it; no ma'am! Mista Sammerses' spectickles—jes' them rims on his spectickles alone—I bet they cos' mo'n all whut thishere young li'l Mista Dills got on him from his toes up an' his skin out. I bet Mista Plummers th'ow mo' money aroun' dess fer gittin' his pants press' than whut Mista Dills afford to spen' to buy his'n in the firs' place! He lose his struggle, 'cause you' Aunt Julia, she out fer the big class. Thishere Gammire, he dog cos' money; he show class same you' Aunt Julia. Ain't neither one of 'em got to waste they time on nobody whut can't show no mo' class than thishere li'l young dish-cumbobbery Mista Dills!"

"I don't care," Florence said stubbornly. "He could of saved up and saved up, and if he saved up long enough he could of got enough money to buy a dog like Gammire, because you can get money enough for anything if you're willing to save up long enough. Anyway, I bet he's the one gave him to her."

Herbert joined Kitty Silver in laughter. "Florence is always talkin' about Noble Dill," he said. "She's sort of crazy, anyway, though."



"It runs in the family," Florence retorted, automatically. "I caught it from my cousins. Anyhow, I don't think there's a single one of any that wants to marry Aunt Julia that's got the slightest co'parison to Noble Dill. I admire him because he's so uncouth."

"He so who?" Kitty Silver inquired.

"Uncouth."

"Yes'm," said Mrs. Silver.

"It's in the ditchanary," Florence explained. "It means rare, elegant, exquisite, obs, unknown, and a whole lot else."

"It does not," Herbert interposed. "It means kind of countrified."

"You go look in the ditchanary," his cousin said severely. "Then, maybe, you'll know what you're talkin' about just for once. Anyhow, I do like Noble Dill, and I bet so does Aunt Julia."

Kitty Silver shook her head. "He lose his struggle, honey! Miss Julia, she out fer the big class. She ain't stedyin' about him 'cept maybe dess to let him run her erran's. She treat 'em all mighty nice, 'cause the mo' come shovin' an' pushin' each other aroun', class or no class, why, the mo' harder that big class got to work to git her—an' the mo' she got after her the mo' keeps a-comin'. But thishere young li'l Mista Dills, I kine o' got strong notion he liable not come no mo' 'tall!" Her tone had become one of reminiscent amusement, which culminated in a burst of laughter. "Whee!" she concluded. "After las' night, I reckon thishere Mista Dills better keep away from the place—yes'm!"

Florence looked thoughtful, and for the time said nothing. It was Herbert who asked: "Why'd Noble Dill better stay away from here?"

"You' grampaw," Mrs. Silver said, shaking her head. "You' grampaw!"

"What about grandpa?" said Herbert. "What'd he do last night?"

"'Do'? Oh, me!" Then Mrs. Silver uttered sounds like the lowing of kine, whereby she meant to indicate her inability to describe Mr. Atwater's performance. "Well, ma'am," she said, in the low and husky voice of simulated exhaustion, "all I got to say: you' grampaw beat hisse'f! He beat hisse'f!"

"How d'you mean? How could he——"

"He beat hisse'f! He dess out-talk hisse'f! No, ma'am; I done hear him many an' many an' many's the time, but las' night he beat hisse'f."

"What about?"

"Nothin' in the wide worl' but dess thishere young li'l Noble Dills whut we talkin' about this livin' minute."

"What started him?"

"Whut start him?" Mrs. Silver echoed with sudden loudness. "My goo'niss! He b'en started ev' since the very firs' time he ev' lay eyes on him prancin' up the front walk to call on Miss Julia. You' grampaw don' like none nem callers, but he everlas'n'ly did up an' take a true spite on thishere li'l Dills!"

"I mean," said Herbert, "what started him last night?"

"Them cigareets," said Kitty Silver. "Them cigareets whut thishere Noble Dills smoke whiles he settin' out on the front po'che callin' on you' Aunt Julia. You' grampaw mighty funny man about smellin'! You know's well's I do he don't even like the smell o' violet. Well, ma'am, if he can't stan' violet, how in the name o' misery he goin' stan' the smell nem cigareets thishere Dills smoke? I can't hardly stan' 'em myse'f. When he light one on the front po'che, she sif' all through the house, an' come slidin' right the whole way out to my kitchen, an' bim! she take me in the nose! You' grampaw awready tole Miss Julia time an' time again if that li'l Dills light dess one mo' on his front po'che he goin' to walk out there an' do some harm! Co'se she nev' tuck an' pay no 'tention, 'cause Miss Julia, she nev' pay no 'tention to nobody; an' she like caller have nice time—she ain' goin' tell 'em you' grampaw make such a fuss. 'Yes, 'deed, kine frien',' she say, she say, when they ast her: 'Miss Julia, ma'am,' they say, 'I like please strike a match fer to light my cigareet if you please, ma'am.' She say: 'Light as many as you please, kine frien',' she say, she say. She say: 'Smell o' cigareet dess deligh'ful li'l smell,' she say. 'Go 'head an' smoke all you kin stan',' she say, ''cause I want you injoy you'se'f when you pay call on me,' she say. Well, so thishere young li'l Dills settin' there puffin' an' blowin' his ches' out and in, an' feelin' all nice 'cause it about the firs' time this livin' summer he catch you' Aunt Julia alone to hisse'f fer while—an' all time the house dess fillin' up, an' draf' blowin' straight at you' grampaw whur he settin' in his liberry. Ma'am, he sen' me out an' tell her come in, he got message mighty important fer to speak to her. So she tell thishere Dills wait a minute, an' walk in the liberry. Oh, ladies!"

"What'd he say?" Herbert asked eagerly.

"He di'n' say nothin'," Mrs. Silver replied eloquently. "He hollered."

"What did he holler?"

"He want know di'n' he never tell her thishere Dills can't smoke no mo' cigareets on his property, an' di'n' he tell her he was'n' goin' allow him on the place if he did? He say she got to go back on the po'che an' run thishere li'l Dills off home. He say he give her fair choice; she kin run him off, or else he go on out and chase him away hisse'f. He claim li'l Dills ain' got no biznuss roun' callin' nowhere 't all, 'cause he on'y make about eighteen dollars a week an' ain't wuth it. He say——"

She was confirmed in this report by an indignant interruption from Florence. "That's just what he did say, the old thing! I heard him, myself, and if you care to ask me, I'll be glad to inform you that I think grandpa's conduck was simply insulting!"

"'Deed it were!" said Mrs. Silver. "An' dess whut he claim hisse'f he mean it fer! But you tell me, please, how you hear whut you' grampaw say? He mighty noisy, but you nev' could a-hear him plumb to whur you live."

"I wasn't home," said Florence. "I was over here."

"Then you mus' 'a' made you'se'f mighty skimpish, 'cause I ain't seen you!"

"Nobody saw me. I wasn't in the house," said Florence, "I was out in front."

"Whurbouts 'out in front'?"

"Well, I was sitting on the ground, up against the latticework of the front porch."

"Whut fur?"

"Well, it was dark," said Florence. "I just kind of wanted to see what might be going on."

"An' you hear all whut you' grampaw take on about an' ev'ything?"

"I should say so! You could of heard him lots farther than where I was."

"Lan' o' misery!" Kitty Silver cried. "If you done hear him whur you was, thishere li'l Dills mus' a-hear him mighty plain?"

"He did. How could he help it? He heard every word, and pretty soon he came down off the porch and stood a minute; then he went on out the gate, and I don't know whether he went home or not, because it was too dark to see. But he didn't come back."

"Yo' right he didn'!" exclaimed Mrs. Silver. "I reckon he got fo'thought 'nough fer that, anyhow! I bet he ain't nev' goin' come back neither. You' grampaw say he goin' be fix fer him, if he do."

"Yes, that was while he was standing there," said Florence ruefully. "He heard all that, too."

"Miss Julia, she s'picion' he done hear somep'm 'nother, I guess," Kitty Silver went on. "She shet the liberry do' right almos' on you' grampaw's nose, whiles he still a-rampin', an' she slip out on the po'che, an' take look 'roun'; then go on up to her own room. I 'uz up there, while after that, turn' down her bed; an' she injoyin' herse'f readin' book. She feel kine o' put out, I reckon, but she ain't stedyin' about no young li'l Dills. She want 'em all to have nice time an' like her, but she goin' lose this one, an' she got plenty to spare. She show too much class fer to fret about no Dills."

"I don't care," said Florence. "I think she ought to whether she does or not, because I bet he was feeling just awful. And I think grandpa behaved like an ole hoodlum."

"That'll do," Herbert admonished her sternly. "You show some respect for your relations, if you please."

But his loyalty to the Atwater family had a bad effect on Florence. "Oh, will I?" she returned promptly. "Well, then, if you care to inquire my opinion, I just politely think grandpa ought to be hanged."

"See here——"

But Florence and Kitty Silver interrupted him simultaneously.

"Look at that!" Florence cried.

"My name!" exclaimed Kitty Silver.

It was the strange taste of Gammire that so excited them. Florence had peeled her orange and divided it rather fairly into three parts, but the vehemence she exerted in speaking of her grandfather had caused her to drop one of these upon the ground. Gammire promptly ate it, "sat up" and adjusted his paws in prayer for more.

"Now you listen me!" said Kitty Silver. "I ain't see no dog eat orange in all my days, an' I ain't see nobody else whut see dog eat orange! No, ma'am, an' I ain't nev' hear o' nobody else whut ev' see nobody whut see dog eat orange!"

Herbert decided to be less impressed. "Oh, I've heard of dogs that'd eat apples," he said. "Yes, and watermelon and nuts and things." As he spoke he played with the tennis ball upon his racket, and concluded by striking the ball high into the air. Its course was not true; and it descended far over toward the orchard, where Herbert ran to catch it—but he was not quick enough. At the moment the ball left the racket Gammire abandoned his prayers: his eyes, like a careful fielder's, calculating and estimating, followed the swerve of the ball in the breeze, and when it fell he was on the correct spot. He caught it.

Herbert shouted. "He caught it on the fly! It must have been an accident. Here——" And he struck the ball into the air again. It went high—twice as high as the house—and again Gammire "judged" it; continuously shifting his position, his careful eyes never leaving the little white globe, until just before the last instant of its descent he was motionless beneath it. He caught it again, and Herbert whooped.

Gammire brought the ball to him and invited him to proceed with the game. That there might be no mistaking his desire, Gammire "sat up" and prayed; nor did he find Herbert anything loth. Out of nine chances Gammire "muffed" the ball only twice, both times excusably, and Florence once more flung her arms about the willing performer.

"Who do you s'pose trained this wonderful, darling doggie?" she cried.

Mrs. Silver shook her marvelling head. "He mus' 'a' come thataway," she said. "I bet nobody 't all ain' train him; he do whut he want to hisse'f. That Gammire don' ast nobody to train him."

"Oh, goodness!" Florence said, with sudden despondency. "It's awful!"

"Whut is?"

"To think of as lovely a dog as this having to face grandpa!"

"'Face' him!" Kitty Silver echoed forebodingly. "I reckon you' grampaw do mo'n dess 'face' him."

"That's what I mean," Florence explained. "I expect he's just brute enough to drive him off."

"Yes'm," said Mrs. Silver. "He git madder ev'y time somebody sen' her new pet. You' grampaw mighty nervous man, an' everlas'n'ly do hate animals."

"He hasn't seen Gammire, has he?"

"Don't look like it, do it?" said Kitty Silver. "Dog here yit."

"Well, then I——" Florence paused, glancing at Herbert, for she had just been visited by a pleasant idea and had no wish to share it with him. "Is Aunt Julia in the house?"

"She were, li'l while ago."

"I want to see her about somep'n I ought to see her about," said Florence. "I'll be out in a minute."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN

She ran into the house, and found Julia seated at a slim-legged desk, writing a note.

"Aunt Julia, it's about Gammire."

"Gamin."

"What?"

"His name is Gamin."

"Kitty Silver says his name's Gammire."

"Yes," said Julia. "She would. His name is Gamin, though. He's a little Parisian rascal, and his name is Gamin."

"Well, Aunt Julia, I'd rather call him Gammire. How much did he cost?"

"I don't know; he was brought to me only this morning, and I haven't asked yet."

"But I thought somebody gave him to you."

"Yes; somebody did."

"Well, I mean," said Florence, "how much did the person that gave him to you pay for him?"

Julia sighed. "I just explained, I haven't had a chance to ask."

Florence looked hurt. "I don't mean you would ask 'em right out. I just meant: Wouldn't you be liable to kind of hint around an' give 'em a chance to tell you how much it was? You know perfeckly well it's the way most the fam'ly do when they give each other somep'n pretty expensive, Christmas or birthdays, and I thought proba'ly you'd——"

"No. I shouldn't be surprised, Florence, if nobody ever got to know how much Gamin cost."

"Well——" Florence said, and decided to approach her purpose on a new tack. "Who was it trained him?"

"I understand that the person who gave him to me has played with him at times during the few days he's been keeping him, but hasn't 'trained' him particularly. French Poodles almost learn their own tricks if you give them a chance. It's natural to them; they love to be little clowns if you let them."

"But who was this person that gave him to you?"

Julia laughed. "It's a secret, Florence—like Gamin's price."

At this Florence looked piqued. "Well, I guess I got some manners!" she exclaimed. "I know as well as you do, Aunt Julia, there's no etiquette in coming right square out and asking how much it was when somebody goes and makes you a present. I'm certainly enough of a lady to keep my mouth shut when it's more polite to! But I don't see what harm there is in telling who it is that gives anybody a present."

"No harm at all," Julia murmured as she sealed the note she had written. Then she turned smilingly to face her niece. "Only I'm not going to."

"Well, then, Aunt Julia"—and now Florence came to her point—"what I wanted to know is just simply the plain and simple question: Will you give this dog Gammire to me?"

Julia leaned forward, laughing, and suddenly clapped her hands together, close to Florence's face. "No, I won't!" she cried. "There!"

The niece frowned, lines of anxiety appearing upon her forehead. "Well, why won't you?"

"I won't do it!"

"But, Aunt Julia, I think you ought to!"

"Why ought I to?"

"Because——" said Florence. "Well, it's necessary."

"Why?"

"Because you know as well as I do what's bound to happen to him!"

"What is?"

"Grandpa'll chase him off," said Florence. "He'll take after him the minute he lays eyes on him, and scare him to death—and then he'll get lost, and he won't be anybody's dog! I should think you'd just as lief he'd be my dog as have him chased all over town till a street car hits him or somep'n."

But Julia shook her head. "That hasn't happened yet."

"It did happen with every other one you ever had," Florence urged plaintively. "He chased 'em every last one off the place, and they never came back. You know perfectly well, Aunt Julia, grandpa's just bound to hate this dog, and you know just exactly how he'll act about him."

"No, I don't," said Julia. "Not just exactly."

"Well, anyway, you know he'll behave awful."

"It's probable," the aunt admitted.

"He always does," Florence continued. "He behaves awful about everything I ever heard about. He——"

"I'll go pretty far with you, Florence," Julia interposed, "but we'd better leave him a loophole. You know he's a constant attendant at church and contributes liberally to many good causes."

"Oh, you know what I mean! I mean he always acts horrable about anything pleasant. Of course I know he's a good man, and everything; I just mean the way he behaves is perfeckly disgusting. So what's the use your not givin' me this dog? You won't have him yourself as soon as grandpa comes home to lunch in an hour or so."

"Oh, yes, I will!"

"Grandpa hasn't already seen him, has he?"

"No."

"Then what makes you say——"

"He isn't coming home to lunch. He won't be home till five o'clock this afternoon."

"Well, then, about six you won't have any dog, and poor little Gammire'll get run over by an automobile some time this very evening!" Florence's voice became anguished in the stress of her appeal. "Aunt Julia, won't you give me this dog?"

Julia shook her head.

"Won't you, please?"

"No, dear."

"Aunt Julia, if it was Noble Dill gave you this dog——"

"Florence!" her aunt exclaimed. "What in the world makes you imagine such absurd things? Poor Mr. Dill!"

"Well, if it was, I think you ought to give Gammire to me because I like Noble Dill, and I——"

But here her aunt laughed again and looked at her with some curiosity. "You still do?" she asked. "What for?"

"Well," said Florence, swallowing, "he may be rather smallish for a man, but he's very uncouth and distingrished-looking, and I think he doesn't get to enjoy himself much. Grandpa talks about him so torrably and—and——" Here, such was the unexpected depth of her feeling that she choked, whereupon her aunt, overcome with laughter, but nevertheless somewhat touched, sprang up and threw two pretty arms about her charmingly.

"You funny Florence!" she cried.

"Then will you give me Gammire?" Florence asked instantly.

"No. We'll bring him in the house now, and you can stay for lunch."

Florence was imperfectly consoled, but she had a thought that brightened her a little.

"Well, there'll be an awful time when grandpa comes home this afternoon—but it certainly will be inter'sting!"

She proved a true prophet, at least to the extent that when Mr. Atwater opened his front gate that afternoon he was already in the presence of a deeply interested audience whose observation was unknown to him. Through the interstices of the lace curtains at an open window, the gaze of Julia and Florence was concentrated upon him in a manner that might have disquieted even so opinionated and peculiar a man as Mr. Atwater, had he been aware of it; and Herbert likewise watched him fixedly from an unseen outpost. Herbert had shown some recklessness, declaring loudly that he intended to lounge in full view; but when the well-known form of the ancestor was actually identified, coming up the street out of the distance, the descendant changed his mind. The good green earth ceased to seem secure; and Herbert climbed a tree. He surrounded himself with the deepest foliage; and beneath him some outlying foothills of Kitty Silver were visible, where she endeavoured to lurk in the concealment of a lilac bush.

Gammire was the only person in view. He sat just in the middle of the top step of the veranda, and his air was that of an endowed and settled institution. What passing traffic there was interested him but vaguely, not affecting the world to which he belonged—that world being this house and yard, of which he felt himself now, beyond all question, the official dog.

It had been a rather hard-working afternoon, for he had done everything suggested to him as well as a great many other things that he thought of himself. He had also made it clear that he had taken a fancy to everybody, but recognized Julia to be the head of the house and of his own universe; and though he was at the disposal of all her family and friends, he was at her disposal first. Whithersoever she went, there would he go also, unless she otherwise commanded. Just now she had withdrawn, closing the door, but he understood that she intended no permanent exclusion. Who was this newcomer at the gate?

The newcomer came to a halt, staring intolerantly. Then he advanced, slamming the gate behind him. "Get out o' here!" he said. "You get off the place!"

Gammire regarded him seriously, not moving, while Mr. Atwater cast an eye about the lawn, seeming to search for something, and his gaze, thus roving, was arrested by a slight movement of great areas behind a lilac bush. It appeared that the dome of some public building had covered itself with antique textiles and was endeavouring to hide there—a failure.

"Kitty Silver!" he said. "What are you doing?"

"Suh?"

Debouching sidewise she came into fuller view, but retired a few steps. "Whut I doin' whur, Mista Atwater?"

"How'd that dog get on my front steps?"

Her face became noncommittal entirely. "Thishere dog? He just settin' there, suh."

"How'd he get in the yard?"

"Mus' somebody up an' brung him in."

"Who did it?"

"You mean: Who up an' brung him in, suh?"

"I mean: Who does he belong to?"

"Mus' be Miss Julia's. I reckon he is, so fur."

"What! She knows I don't allow dogs on the place."

"Yessuh."

Mr. Atwater's expression became more outraged and determined. "You mean to say that somebody's trying to give her another dog after all I've been through with——"

"It look that way, suh."

"Who did it?"

"Miss Julia ain't sayin'; an' me, I don' know who done it no mo'n the lilies of the valley whut toil not neither do they spins."

In response, Mr. Atwater was guilty of exclamations lacking in courtesy; and turning again toward Gammire, he waved his arm. "Didn't you hear me tell you to get out of here?"

Gammire observed the gesture, and at once "sat up," placing his forepaws over his nose in prayer, but Mr. Atwater was the more incensed.

"Get out of here, you woolly black scoundrel!"

Mrs. Silver uttered a cry of injury before she perceived that she had mistaken her employer's intention. Gammire also appeared to mistake it, for he came down upon the lawn, rose to his full height, on his "hind legs," and in that humanlike posture "walked" in a wide circle. He did this with an affectation of conscientiousness thoroughly hypocritical; for he really meant to be humorous.

"My heavens!" Mr. Atwater cried, lamenting. "Somebody's given her one of those things at last! I don't like any kind of dog, but if there's one dam thing on earth I won't stand, it's a trick poodle!"

And while the tactless Gammire went on, "walking" a circle round him, Mr. Atwater's eye furiously searched the borders of the path, the lawn, and otherwheres, for anything that might serve as missile. He had never kicked a dog, or struck one with his hand, in his life; he had a theory that it was always better to throw something. "Idiot poodle!" he said.

But Gammire's tricks were not idiocy in the eyes of Mr. Atwater's daughter, as she watched them. They had brought to her mind the tricks of the Jongleur of Notre Dame, who had nothing to offer heaven itself, to mollify heaven's rulers, except his entertainment of juggling and nonsense; so that he sang his thin jocosities and played his poor tricks before the sacred figure of the Madonna; but when the pious would have struck him down for it, she miraculously came to life just long enough to smile on him and show that he was right to offer his absurd best. And thus, as Julia watched the little Jongleur upon the lawn, she saw this was what he was doing: offering all he knew, hoping that someone might laugh at him, and like him. And, not curiously, after all, if everything were known, she found herself thinking of another foolish creature, who had nothing in the world to offer anybody, except what came out of the wistfulness of a foolish, loving heart. Then, though her lips smiled faintly as she thought of Noble Dill, all at once a brightness trembled along the eyelids of the Prettiest Girl in Town, and glimmered over, a moment later, to shine upon her cheek.

"You get out!" Mr. Atwater shouted, "D'ye hear me, you poodle?"

He found the missile, a stone of fair diameter. He hurled it violently.

"There, darn you!"

The stone missed, and Gammire fled desperately after it.

"You get over that fence!" Mr. Atwater cried. "You wait till I find another rock and I'll——"

He began to search for another stone, but, before he could find one, Gammire returned with the first. He deposited it upon the ground at Mr. Atwater's feet.

"There's your rock," he said.

Mr. Atwater looked down at him fiercely, and through the black chrysanthemum two garnet sparks glinted waggishly.

"Didn't you hear me tell you what I'd do if you didn't get out o' here, you darn poodle?"

Gammire "sat up," placed his forepaws together over his nose and prayed. "There's your rock," he said. And he added, as clearly as if he used a spoken language, "Let's get on with the game!"

Mr. Atwater turned to Kitty Silver. "Does he—does he know how to speak, or shake hands, or anything like that?" he asked.

* * * * *

The next morning, as the peculiar old man sat at breakfast, he said to the lady across the table: "Look here. Who did give Gamin to us?"

Julia bit her lip; she even cast down her eyes.

"Well, who was it?"

Her demureness still increased. "It was—Noble Dill."

Mr. Atwater was silent; he looked down and caught a clownish garnet gleam out of a blackness neighbouring his knee. "Well, see here," he said. "Why can't you—why can't you——"

"Why can't I what?"

"Why can't you sit out in the yard the next time he calls here, instead of on the porch where it blows all through the house? It's just as pleasant to sit under the trees, isn't it?"

"Pleasanter," said Julia.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN

By the end of October, with the dispersal of foliage that has served all summer long as a screen for whatever small privacy may exist between American neighbours, we begin to perceive the rise of our autumn high tides of gossip. At this season of the year, in our towns of moderate size and ambition, where apartment houses have not yet condensed and at the same time sequestered the population, one may look over back yard beyond back yard, both up and down the street; especially if one takes the trouble to sit for an hour or so daily, upon the top of a high fence at about the middle of a block.

Of course an adult who followed such a course would be thought peculiar, no doubt he would be subject to inimical comment; but boys are considered so inexplicable that they have gathered for themselves many privileges denied their parents and elders, and a boy can do such a thing as this to his full content, without anybody's thinking about it at all. So it was that Herbert Illingsworth Atwater, Jr., sat for a considerable time upon such a fence, after school hours, every afternoon of the last week in October; and only one person particularly observed him or was stimulated to any mental activity by his procedure. Even at that, this person was affected only because she was Herbert's relative, of an age sympathetic to his and of a sex antipathetic.

In spite of the fact that Herbert, thus seriously disporting himself on his father's back fence, attracted only an audience of one (and she hostile at a rather distant window) his behaviour might well have been thought piquant by anybody. After climbing to the top of the fence he would produce from interior pockets a small memorandum-book and a pencil. His expression was gravely alert, his manner more than businesslike; yet nobody could have failed to comprehend that he was enjoying himself, especially when his attitude became tenser, as it frequently did. Then he would rise, balancing himself at adroit ease, his feet one before the other on the inner rail, below the top of the boards, and with eyes dramatically shielded beneath a scoutish palm, he would gaze sternly in the direction of some object or movement that had attracted his attention and then, having satisfied himself of something or other, he would sit and decisively enter a note in his memorandum-book.

He was not always alone; sometimes he was joined by a friend, male, and, though shorter than Herbert, about as old; and this companion was inspired, it seemed, by motives precisely similar to those from which sprang Herbert's own actions. Like Herbert he would sit upon the top of the high fence; like Herbert he would rise at intervals, for the better study of something this side the horizon; then, also like Herbert, he would sit again and write firmly in a little notebook. And seldom in the history of the world have any such sessions been invested by the participants with so intentional an appearance of importance.

That was what most irritated their lone observer at the somewhat distant upstairs back window. The important importance of Herbert and his friend was so extreme as to be all too plainly visible across four intervening broad back yards; in fact, there was sometimes reason to suspect that the two performers were aware of their audience and even of her goaded condition; and that they deliberately increased the outrageousness of their importance on her account. And upon the Saturday of that week, when the notebook writers were upon the fence the greater part of the afternoon, Florence's fascinated indignation became vocal.

"Vile Things!" she said.

Her mother, sewing beside another window of the room, looked up inquiringly.

"What are, Florence?"

"Cousin Herbert and that nasty little Henry Rooter."

"Are you watching them again?" her mother asked.

"Yes, I am," said Florence; and added tartly, "Not because I care to, but merely to amuse myself at their expense."

Mrs. Atwater murmured, "Couldn't you find some other way to amuse yourself, Florence?"

"I don't call this amusement," the inconsistent girl responded, not without chagrin. "Think I'd spend all my days starin' at Herbert Illingsworth Atwater, Junior, and that nasty little Henry Rooter, and call it amusement?"

"Then why do you do it?"

"Why do I do what, mamma?" Florence inquired, as in despair of Mrs. Atwater's ever learning to put things clearly.

"Why do you 'spend all your days' watching them? You don't seem able to keep away from the window, and it appears to make you irritable. I should think if they wouldn't let you play with them you'd be too proud——"

"Oh, good heavens, mamma!"

"Don't use such expressions, Florence, please."

"Well," said Florence, "I got to use some expression when you accuse me of wantin' to 'play' with those two vile things! My goodness mercy, mamma, I don't want to 'play' with 'em! I'm more than four years old, I guess; though you don't ever seem willing to give me credit for it. I don't haf to 'play' all the time, mamma: and anyway, Herbert and that nasty little Henry Rooter aren't playing, either."

"Aren't they?" Mrs. Atwater inquired. "I thought the other day you said you wanted them to let you play with them at being a newspaper reporter or editor or something like that, and they were rude and told you to go away. Wasn't that it?"

Florence sighed. "No, mamma, it cert'nly wasn't."

"They weren't rude to you?"

"Yes, they cert'nly were!"

"Well, then——"

"Mamma, can't you understand?" Florence turned from the window to beseech Mrs. Atwater's concentration upon the matter. "It isn't 'playing'! I didn't want to 'play' being a reporter; they ain't 'playing'——"

"Aren't playing, Florence."

"Yes'm. They're not. Herbert's got a real printing-press; Uncle Joseph gave it to him. It's a real one, mamma, can't you understand?"

"I'll try," said Mrs. Atwater. "You mustn't get so excited about it, Florence."

"I'm not!" Florence returned vehemently. "I guess it'd take more than those two vile things and their old printing-press to get me excited! I don't care what they do; it's far less than nothing to me! All I wish is they'd fall off the fence and break their vile ole necks!"

With this manifestation of impersonal calmness, she turned again to the window; but her mother protested. "Do quit watching those foolish boys; you mustn't let them upset you so by their playing."

Florence moaned. "They don't 'upset' me, mamma! They have no effects on me by the slightest degree! And I told you, mamma, they're not 'playing'."

"Then what are they doing?"

"Well, they're having a newspaper. They got the printing-press and an office in Herbert's stable, and everything. They got somebody to give 'em some ole banisters and a railing from a house that was torn down somewheres, and then they got it stuck up in the stable loft, so it runs across with a kind of a gate in the middle of these banisters, and on one side is the printing-press and a desk from that nasty little Henry Rooter's mother's attic; and a table and some chairs, and a map on the wall; and that's their newspaper office. They go out and look for what's the news, and write it down in lead pencil; and then they go up to their office and write it in ink; and then they print it for their newspaper."

"But what do they do on the fence?"

"That's where they go to watch what the news is," Florence explained morosely. "They think they're so grand, sittin' up there, pokin' around! They go other places, too; and they ask people. That's all they said I could be!" Here the lady's bitterness became strongly intensified. "They said maybe I could be one o' the ones they asked if I knew anything, sometimes, if they happened to think of it! I just respectf'ly told 'em I'd decline to wipe my oldest shoes on 'em to save their lives!"

Mrs. Atwater sighed. "You mustn't use such expressions, Florence."

"I don't see why not," the daughter promptly objected. "They're a lot more refined than the expressions they used on me!"

"Then I'm very glad you didn't play with them."

But at this, Florence once more gave way to filial despair. "Mamma, you just can't see through anything! I've said anyhow fifty times they ain't—aren't—playing! They're getting up a real newspaper, and have people buy it and everything. They been all over this part of town and got every aunt and uncle they have besides their own fathers and mothers, and some people in the neighbourhood, and Kitty Silver and two or three other coloured people besides. They're going to charge twenty-five cents a year, collect-in-advance because they want the money first; and even papa gave 'em a quarter last night; he told me so."

"How often do they intend to publish their paper, Florence?" Mrs. Atwater inquired absently, having resumed her sewing.

"Every week; and they're goin' to have the first one a week from to-day."

"What do they call it?"

"The North End Daily Oriole. It's the silliest name I ever heard for a newspaper; and I told 'em so. I told 'em what I thought of it, I guess!"

"Was that the reason?" Mrs. Atwater asked.

"Was it what reason, mamma?"

"Was it the reason they wouldn't let you be a reporter with them?"

"Poot!" Florence exclaimed airily. "I didn't want anything to do with their ole paper. But anyway I didn't make fun o' their callin' it 'The North End Daily Oriole' till after they said I couldn't be in it. Then I did, you bet!"

"Florence, don't say——"

"Mamma, I got to say somep'n! Well, I told 'em I wouldn't be in their ole paper if they begged me on their bented knees; and I said if they begged me a thousand years I wouldn't be in any paper with such a crazy name and I wouldn't tell 'em any news if I knew the President of the United States had the scarlet fever! I just politely informed 'em they could say what they liked, if they was dying I declined so much as wipe the oldest shoes I got on 'em!"

"But why wouldn't they let you be on the paper?" her mother insisted.

Upon this Florence became analytical. "Just so's they could act so important." And she added, as a consequence, "They ought to be arrested!"

Mrs. Atwater murmured absently, but forbore to press her inquiry; and Florence was silent, in a brooding mood. The journalists upon the fence had disappeared from view, during her conversation with her mother; and presently she sighed, and quietly left the room. She went to her own apartment, where, at a small and rather battered little white desk, after a period of earnest reverie, she took up a pen, wet the point in purple ink, and without great effort or any critical delayings, produced a poem.

It was in a sense an original poem, though like the greater number of all literary projections, it was so strongly inspirational that the source of its inspiration might easily become manifest to a cold-blooded reader. Nevertheless, to the poetess herself, as she explained later in good faith, the words just seemed to come to her;—doubtless with either genius or some form of miracle implied; for sources of inspiration are seldom recognized by inspired writers themselves. She had not long ago been party to a musical Sunday afternoon at her Great-Uncle Joseph's house, where Mr. Clairdyce sang some of his songs again and again, and her poem may have begun to coagulate within her then.

THE ORGANEST

BY FLORENCE ATWATER

The organest was seated at his organ in a church, In some beautiful woods of maple and birch, He was very weary while he played upon the keys, But he was a great organest and always played with ease, When the soul is weary, And the wind is dreary, I would like to be an organest seated all day at the organ, Whether my name might be Fairchild or Morgan, I would play music like a vast amen, The way it sounds in a church of men.

Florence read her poem seven or eight times, the deepening pleasure of her expression being evidence that repetition failed to denature this work, but on the contrary, enhanced an appreciative surprise at its singular merit. Finally she folded the sheet of paper with a delicate carefulness unusual to her, and placed it in her skirt pocket; then she went downstairs and out into the back yard. Her next action was straightforward and anything but prudish; she climbed the high wooden fences, one after the other, until she came to a pause at the top of that whereon the two journalists had lately made themselves so odiously impressive.

Before her, if she had but taken note of them, were a lesson in history and the markings of a profound transition in human evolution. Beside the old frame stable was a little brick garage, obviously put to the daily use intended by its designer. Quite as obviously the stable was obsolete; anybody would have known from its outside that there was no horse within it. There, visible, was the end of the pastoral age.

All this was lost upon Florence. She sat upon the fence, her gaze unfavourably though wistfully fixed upon a sign of no special aesthetic merit above the stable door.

THE NORTH END DAILY ORIOLE ATWATER & ROOTER OWNERS & PROPREITORS SUBSCRIBE NOW 25 CENTS

The inconsistency of the word "daily" did not trouble Florence; moreover, she had found no fault with "Oriole" until the Owners & Propreitors had explained to her in the plainest terms known to their vocabularies that she was excluded from the enterprise. Then, indeed, she had been reciprocally explicit in regard not only to them and certain personal characteristics of theirs, which she pointed out as fundamental, but in regard to any newspaper which should deliberately call itself an "Oriole." The partners remained superior in manner, though unable to conceal a natural resentment; they had adopted "Oriole" not out of a sentiment for the city of Baltimore, nor, indeed, on account of any ornithologic interest of theirs, but as a relic left over from an abandoned club or secret society, which they had previously contemplated forming, its members to be called "The Orioles" for no reason whatever. The two friends had talked of this plan at many meetings throughout the summer, and when Mr. Joseph Atwater made his great-nephew the unexpected present of a printing-press, and a newspaper consequently took the place of the club, Herbert and Henry still entertained an affection for their former scheme and decided to perpetuate the name. They were the more sensitive to attack upon it by an ignorant outsider and girl like Florence, and her chance of ingratiating herself with them, if that could be now her intention, was not a promising one.

She descended from the fence with pronounced inelegance, and, approaching the old double doors of the "carriage-house," which were open, paused to listen. Sounds from above assured her that the editors were editing—or at least that they could be found at their place of business. Therefore, she ascended the cobwebby stairway, emerged from it into the former hay loft, and thus made her appearance in the printing-room of The North End Daily Oriole.

Herbert, frowning with the burden of composition, sat at a table beyond the official railing, and his partner was engaged at the press, earnestly setting type. This latter person (whom Florence so seldom named otherwise than as "that nasty little Henry Rooter") was of a pure, smooth, fair-haired appearance, and strangely clean for his age and occupation. His profile was of a symmetry he had not yet himself begun to appreciate; his dress was scrupulous and modish; and though he was short, nothing outward about him confirmed the more sinister of Florence's two adjectives. Nevertheless, her poor opinion of him was plain in her expression as she made her present intrusion upon his working hours. He seemed to reciprocate.

"Listen! Didn't I and Herbert tell you to keep out o' here?" he said. "Look at her, Herbert! She's back again!"

"You get out o' here, Florence," said Herbert, abandoning his task with a look of pain. "How often we got to tell you we don't want you around here when we're in our office like this?"

"For Heaven's sake!" Henry Rooter thought fit to add. "Can't you quit runnin' up and down our office stairs once in a while, long enough for us to get our newspaper work done? Can't you give us a little peace?"

The pinkiness of Florence's altering complexion was justified; she had not been within a thousand miles of their old office for four days. With some heat she stated this to be the fact, adding, "And I only came then because I knew somebody ought to see that this stable isn't ruined. It's my own uncle and aunt's stable, I guess, isn't it? Answer me that, if you'll kindly please to do so!"

"It's my father and mother's stable," Herbert asserted. "Haven't I got a right to say who's allowed in my own father and mother's stable?"

"You have not," the prompt Florence replied. "It's my own uncle and aunt's stable, and I got as much right here as anybody."

"You have not!" Henry Rooter protested hotly. "This isn't either your ole aunt and uncle's stable."

"It isn't?"

"No, it is not! This isn't anybody's stable. It's my and Herbert's Newspaper Building, and I guess you haven't got the face to stand there and claim you got a right to go in a Newspaper Building and say you got a right there when everybody tells you to stay outside of it, I guess!"