[Ill.u.s.tration]

"No; the odor of onions is a little strong, isn't it?" laughed the other. "Rather strange, by the by, some of nature's best restoratives should be rank and noisome, while her poisons, like the Upas tree, are often sweet-smelling and agreeable?"

"Yes," commented the land baron; "we make the worst faces over the medicines that do us the most good."

"I presume," said Straws, delighted at the prospect of an argument, and forgetting his curiosity over the other's visit in this brief interchange of words, "nature but calls our attention to the fact that we may know our truest friends are not those with the sweetest manners."

"Heaven forbid!" remarked Mauville. "But how are you getting on with your column? A surfeit of news and gossip, I presume? What a busy fellow you are, to be sure! Nothing escapes through your seine. Big fish or little fish, it is all one. You dress them up with alluring sauce."

The bard shook his head.

"The net has been coming in dry," he said gloomily. "But that's the way with the fish. Sometimes you catch a good haul, and then they all disappear. It's been bad luck lately."

"Perhaps I can make a cast for you," cried the patroon eagerly.

"And bring up what?" asked the hack.

"Something everybody will read; that will set the gossips talking."

"A woman's reputation?"

"No; a man's."

"That is to be regretted," said Straws. "If, now, it were only a woman's--.However, it's the next best thing to start the town a-gossiping. I am much obliged to you for taking the trouble of calling. All those stairs to climb, too!"

"I was sure you would be glad to hear of it," remarked the patroon, slowly, studying with his bright, insolent glance, the pale, intellectual face of the scribbler.

"Yes; there's only one thing stands in the way."

"And that?"

"I never publish anything I don't believe. Don't misunderstand me, please." Pouring out a gla.s.s of wine. "Unfortunately I am so incredulous! Isn't it a pity? I am such a carping cynic; a regular skeptic that follows the old adage, 'Believe that story false that ought not to be true.' It's such a detriment to my work, too! A pretty scandal at the top of my column would make me famous, while a sprinkling of libels and lampoons would enable me to move down a story or two. But, after all, I'd feel lost in the luxury of a first floor front chamber. So, you see, nature adjusts herself to our needs."

"Makes the sh.e.l.l to fit the snail, as it were," commented the land baron, patronizingly, gazing around the little cupboard of a room. "At any rate," he added, in an effort to hide his dissatisfaction, "it's a pleasure to become better acquainted with such a--what shall I say?--whimsical fellow as yourself?"

"That's it," returned the bard. "Whimsical!"

"I dare say you have had many a chance to turn an honest penny or two, if you had not been so skeptical, as you call it?" remarked the patroon, significantly. "People, I presume, have even offered to pay you for publishing the compliments of the season about their neighbors?"

"Well," answered the scribbler, laughing, "I may have Midas' longing for gold, but I also have his ears. And the ears predominate. I am such an a.s.s I have even returned a fair pet.i.tioner's perfumed note!

Such a dainty little hand! How good the paper smelt! How devilish it read! The world's idea about the devil always smelling of sulphur and brimstone is a slander on that much abused person. I can positively affirm that he smells of musk, attar, myrrh; as though he had lain somewhere with a lady's sachet or scent-bag."

"Really you should revise Milton," murmured the land baron, carelessly, his interest quite gone. "But I must be moving on." And he arose. "Good evening."

"Good night!" said Straws, going to the door after his departing guest. "Can you see your way down? Look out for the turn! And don't depend too much on the bannisters--they're rather shaky. Well, he's gone!" Returning once more to the room. "We're coming up in the world, my dear, when such fashionable callers visit us! What do you think of him?"

"He is very--handsome!" replied the child.

"Oh, the vanity of the s.e.x! Is he--is he handsomer than I?"

"Are you--handsome?" she asked.

"Eh? Don't you think so?"

"No-o," she cried, in a pa.s.sion of distressed truthfulness.

"Thank you, my dear! What a flattering creature you'll become, if you keep on as you've begun! How you'll wheedle the men, to be sure!"

"But mustn't I say what I think?"

"Always! I'm a bad adviser! Think of bringing up a young person, especially a girl, to speak the truth! What a time she'll have!"

"But I couldn't do anything else!" she continued, with absorbing and painful anxiety.

"Don't, then! I'm instructing you to your destruction, but--don't! I'm a philosopher in the School for Making Simpletons. What will you do when you go out into the broad world with truth for your banner and your heart on your sleeve?"

"How could I have my heart on my sleeve?" asked Celestina.

"Because you couldn't help it!"

"Really and truly on my sleeve?"

"Really and truly!" he affirmed, gravely.

"How funny!" answered the girl.

"No; tragic! But what shall we do now, Celestina?"

"Wash the dishes," said the child, practically.

"But, my dear, we won't need them until to-morrow," expostulated the poet. "Precipitancy is a bad fault. Now, if you had proposed a little music, or a fairy tale--"

"Oh, I could wash them while you played, or told me a story,"

suggested the child, eagerly.

"That isn't such a bad idea," commented Straws, reflectively.

"Then you will let me?" she asked.

"Go ahead!" said the bard, and he reached for the whistle.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SWEETEST THING IN NATURE