"That sounds like a full description, Harold," says I. "Did you stray off, or was you sent?"

"I trust you don't mind," says he; "but I am exploring."

"Explore away then," says I, "so long as you don't tramp through the flowerbeds."

"Oh, I wouldn't think of injuring them," says he. "I am passionately fond of flowers."

"You don't say!" says I.

"Yes," says Harold, droppin' down easy on the bench alongside of me. "I love Nature in all her moods. I am a poet, you know."

"Eh!" says I. "Ain't you beginning sort of young?"

"Nearly all the really great men of literature," comes back Harold as prompt as if he was speakin' a piece, "have begun their careers by writing verse. I presume mine might be considered somewhat immature; but I am impelled from within to do it. All that will pass, however, when I enter on my serious work."

"Oh, then you've got a job on the hook, have you!" says I.

"I expect," says Harold, smilin' sort of indulgent and runnin' his fingers careless through his thick coppery hair, "to produce my first novel when I am twenty. It will have a somber theme, something after the manner of Turgenieff. Do you not find Turgenieff very stimulating?"

"Harold," says I, "all them Hungarian wines are more or less heady, and a kid like you shouldn't monkey with any of 'em."

He looks almost pained at that. "You're chaffing me now, I suppose," says he. "That sort of thing, though, I never indulge in. Humor, you know, is but froth on the deep seas of thought. It has never seemed to me quite worth one's while. You will pardon my frankness, I know."

"Harold," says I, "you're a wizard. So it's nix on the josh, eh?"

"What singular metaphors you employ!" says he. "Do you know, I can hardly follow you. However, colloquial language does not offend my ear. It is only when I see it in print that I shudder."

"Me too," says I. "I'm just as sore on these foreign languages as anyone.

So you're visitin' next door, eh? Enjoyin' yourself?"

That was a plain cue for Harold Burbank to launch out on the story of his life; but, say, he didn't need any such encouragement. He was a willin'

and ready converser, Harold was; and--my!--what a lot of classy words he did have on tap! First off I wondered how it was a youngster like him could dig up so many; but when I'd heard a little more about him I could account for it all.

He'd cut his teeth, as you might say, on the encyclopedia. Harold's father had been a professor of dead languages, and I guess he must have died of it. Anyway, Mother was a widow, and from things Harold dropped I judged she was more or less frisky, spendin' her time at bridge and chasin' teas and dinner parties. It was clear she wa'n't any highbrow, such as Father must have been. All of which was disappointin' to Harold.

He made no bones of sayin' so.

"Why pretend to approve of one's parent," says he, "when approval is undeserved?"

There was a lot of other folks that Harold disapproved of too. In fact, he was a mighty critical youth, only bein' able to entertain a good opinion of but one certain party. At any other time I expect he'd have given me an earache; but I'd been handed so much silence by our double Romeo-Juliet bunch that most any kind of conversation was welcome just then. So I lets him spiel away.

And, say, he acts like he was hungry for the chance. Why, he gives me his ideas on every subject you could think of, from the way Napoleon got himself started on the toboggan, to the folly of eatin' fried ham for breakfast. He sure was a wonder, that kid! Two solid hours we chinned there in the summerhouse, and it was almost by main strength I broke away for a one o'clock dinner.

Then, just as I'd got settled comf'table on the veranda in the afternoon, he shows up and begins again. There was nothin' diffident or backward about Harold. He didn't have any doubts about whether he was welcome or not, and his confidence about bein' able to entertain was amazin'.

It didn't do any good to throw out hints that perhaps he was bein' missed at home, or to yawn and pretend you was sleepy. He was as persistent as a mosquito singin' its evenin' song, and most as irritatin'. Twice I gets up and pikes off, tryin' to shake him; but Harold trails right along too.

Maybe I'd yearned for conversation. Well, I was gettin' it.

At last I grows desp'rate, and in about two minutes more he would have been led home to Mother with the request that she tether him on her side of the fence, when I sees two of the lovers strollin' off to find a nook that wa'n't preempted by the other pair. And all of a sudden I has this rosy thought.

"Harold," says I, "it's most too bad, your wastin' all this flossy talk on me, who can't appreciate its fine points as I should, when there go some young people who might be tickled to death to have you join 'em.

Suppose you try cheerin' 'em up?"

"Why," says Harold, "I had not observed them before. Thank you for the suggestion. I will join them at once."

Does he? Say, for the next couple of hours I had the time of my life watchin' the maneuvers. First off I expect they must have thought him kind of cute, same as I did; but it wa'n't long before they begun tryin'

to lose him. If they shifted positions once, they did a dozen times, from the summerhouse to the rocks, then up to the veranda and back again, with Harold Burbank taggin' right along and spoutin' his best. He tackles first one pair, and then the other, until fin'lly they all retreats into the house. Harold hesitates a little about walkin' through the door after 'em, until I waves my hand cordial.

"Make yourself right to home, Harold," says I. "Keep 'em cheered up."

Not until he drives the girls off to their rooms and has Bobbie and Charles glarin' murderous at him, does he quit the sport and retire for supper.

"Come over again this evenin'," says I. "You're makin' a hit."

Harold thanks me some more and says he will. He's a great one to keep his word too. Bobbie and Marjorie have hardly snuggled up in one end of a hammock to watch the moon do things to the wavelets before here is Harold, with a fresh line of talk that he's bent on deliverin' while the mood is on.

Gettin' no answer from his audience didn't bother him a bit; for passin'

out the monologue is his strong suit. Not to seem partial, he trails down Charlie and Helen and converses with them too. Course, all this occurrin'

outside, I couldn't watch everything that took place; but I sits in the lib'ry with Sadie a lot more contented than I'd been before that week.

And when Marjorie drifts in alone, along about nine o'clock, and goes to drummin' on the piano, I smiles. Ten minutes later Helen appears too; and it's only when neither of the boys show up that I begins wonderin'. I asks no questions; but goes out on a scoutin' trip. There's nobody on the veranda at all. Down by the waterfront, though, I could hear voices, and I goes sleuthin' in that direction.

"Yes," I could hear Harold sayin' as I got most to the boat landin', "the phosphorescence that ignorant sailors attribute to electricity in the air is really a minute marine animal which----"

I expect I'll never know the rest; for just then there's a break in the lecture.

"One, two, three--now!" comes from Bobbie, and before Harold can let out a single squeal they've grabbed him firm and secure, one by the heels and the other by the collar, and they've begun sousin' him up and down off the edge of the float. It was high tide too.

"Uggle-guggle! Wow!" remarks Harold between splashes.

"That's right," observes Charles through, his teeth. "Swallow a lot of it, you windbag! It'll do you good."

Course, these young gents was guests of mine, and I hadn't interfered before with their partic'lar way of enjoyin' themselves; so I couldn't begin now. But after they was through, and a draggled, chokin', splutterin' youth had gone beatin' it up the path and over towards the next place, I strolls down to meet 'em as they are comin' up to the house.

"Hope you didn't see what happened down there just now, Professor," says Bobbie.

"Me?" says I. "Well, if I did I can forget it quick."

"Thanks, old man!" says both of 'em, pattin' me friendly on the shoulder.

"The little beast!" adds Charles. "He had the nerve to say you had put him up to it. That's what finally earned him his ducking, you know."

"Well, well!" says I. "Such a nice spoken youngster too!"

"Huh!" says Bobbie. "I suppose there'll be no end of a row about this when he gets home with his tale; but we'll stand for it. Meanwhile let's go up and get the girls to give us some music."

Say, I don't believe Harold ever mentioned it to a soul. It's a funny thing too, but he hasn't been over here since. And someway, gettin'

better acquainted with the boys in that fashion, made it pleasanter all round.

But no more entertainin' lovers for us! Harolds ain't common enough.