But a great deal of it is just to hear himself talk, I judge.

We had a perfectly good high tea, and them b.u.t.tered scones with marmalade couldn't be beat. Also he shows us all over the house, and Vee raves about it.

"Look, Torchy!" says she. "That glimpse of water from the living-room windows. Isn't that dear? And one could have such a wonderful garden beyond. Such a splendid big fireplace, too. And what huge beams in the ceiling! It's a very old house, isn't it, Mr. Shinn?"

"The rascally agent who sold it to me said it was," says MacGregor, "but I wouldn't believe a word of his on any subject. 'Did I ask you for an old house, at all?' I tells him. For what I wanted was just a place where I could live quiet, and maybe have me game of golf when I wanted it. But here I've gone off me game; and, besides, the country's no place to live quiet in. I should be in town, so I should, like any decent white man. I've a mind to look up a place at once. Try another scone, young lady."

So it was long after six before we got away, and the last thing MacGregor does is to load Vee down with a whole armful of lilac blossoms.

I suppose Mr. and Mrs. Robert thought we'd been makin' a wholesale raid when they saw us comin' in with the plunder. Mrs. Robert almost turns pale.

"Mercy!" says she. "You don't mean to say you got all those from our neighbor's bushes, do you?"

"Uh-huh," says I. "We've been mesmerizin' MacGregor. He's as tame a Scot now as you'd want to see."

They could hardly believe it, and when they heard about our havin' tea with him they gasped.

"Of all persons!" says Mrs. Robert. "Why, he has been glaring at us for a year, and sending us the most bristling messages. I don't understand."

Mr. Robert, though, winks knowin'.

"Some of Torchy's red-headed diplomacy, I suspect," says he. "I must engage you to make our peace with MacGregor."

That's all we saw of him, though, durin' our stay. For one thing, we was kept fairly busy. I never knew you could have so much fun in the country. Ever watch a bunch of young ducks waddlin' about? Say, ain't they a circus! And them fluffy little chicks squabblin' over worms.

Honest, I near laughed myself sick. Vee was for luggin' some of 'em home to the apartment. But she was thrilled over 'most everything out there, from the fat robins on the lawn to the new leaves on the trees.

And, believe me, when we gets back to town again, our studio apartment seems cramped and stuffy. We talked over everything we'd seen and done at the Ellinses'.

"That's really living, isn't it?" says Vee.

"Why not," says I, "with a twenty-room house, and grounds half as big as Central Park?"

"I know," says Vee. "But a little place like Mr. Shinn's would be large enough for us."

"I expect it would," says I. "You don't really think you'd like to live out there, do you, though?"

"Wouldn't I!" says Vee, her eyes sparklin'. "I'd love it."

"What would you do all day alone?" I suggests.

"I'd raise ducks and chickens and flowers," says Vee. "And Leon could have a garden. Just think!"

Yep--I thought. I must have kept awake hours that night, tryin' not to.

And the more I mulled it over---- Well, in the mornin' I had a talk with Mr. Robert, after which I got busy with the long-distance 'phone. I didn't say anything much at lunch about what I'd done, but around three o'clock I calls up the apartment.

"I'm luggin' home someone to dinner," says I. "Guess who?"

Vee couldn't.

"MacGregor the grouch," says I.

"Really!" says Vee. "How funny!"

"It's part of the plot," says I. "Tell the Professor to spread himself on the eatings, and have the rooms all fixed up slick."

Vee says she will. And she does. MacGregor falls for it, too. You should have seen him after dinner, leanin' back comfortable in our biggest chair, sippin' his coffee, and puffin' one of Old Hickory's special perfectos that I'd begged for the occasion.

And still I didn't let on. What I'm after is to have him spring the proposition on me. Just before he's ready to go, too, he does.

"I say," says he casual, "this isn't such a bad hole you have here."

"Perfectly rotten," says I.

"Then we might make a trade," says he. "What?"

"There's no tellin'," says I. "You mean a swap, as things stand?"

"That's it," says he. "I'm no hand for moving rubbish about."

"Me either," says I. "But if you mean business, suppose you drop in to-morrow at the office, about ten-thirty, and talk it over."

"Very well," says MacGregor. "I'll stop in town to-night."

"Oh, Torchy!" says Vee, after he's gone. "Do--do you suppose he will--really?"

"You're still for it, eh?" says I. "Sure, now?"

"Oh, it would be almost too good to be true," says she. "That could be made just the dearest place!"

"Yes," says I; "but my job is to talk MacGregor into lettin' it go cheap, or else we can't afford to touch it."

Well, I can't claim it was all my smooth work that did the trick, for MacGregor had bought the place at a bargain first off, and now he was anxious to unload. Still, he hadn't been born north of Glasgow for nothing. But the figures Mr. Robert said would be about right I managed to shade by twenty per cent., and my lump invoice of that old mahogany of ours maybe was a bit generous. Anyway, when I goes home that night I tosses Vee a long envelop.

"What's this?" says she.

"That's your chicken permit," says I. "All aboard for Lilac Lodge! Gee!

I wonder should I grow whiskers, livin' out there?"

CHAPTER VI

TORCHY IN THE GAZINKUS CLa.s.s

I expect I'll get used to it all in time. This rural stuff, I mean. But it ain't goin' to come easy. When you've been brought up to think of home as some place where you've got a right to leave your trunk as long as you pay the rent prompt,--a joint where you have so many square feet of s.p.a.ce on a certain floor, and maybe eight or ten inches of brick and plaster between you and a lot of strangers,--and then all of a sudden you switch to a whole house that's all yours, with gobs of land all around it, and trees and bushes and things that you can do what you like with--well, it's sort of staggerin' at first.

Why, the day Vee and I moved into this Harbor Hills place that I'd made the swift trade for with MacGregor Shinn, we just had our baggage dumped in the middle of the livin'-room, chucked our wraps on some chairs, and went scoutin' around from one room to another for over an hour, kind of nutty and excited.