know what I took him
for?"

"Come now, that's good!" retorted the urchin, unabashed, "My! Mr
Sellon, but if you could only have seen yourself standing there in the
water in a blue funk!" and both cubs thereupon burst into shrill and
undisguised laughter.

"I tell you what, youngster, that was an uncommonly good shot of yours,"
said wily Sellon, on the principle of agreeing with his adversary
quickly, for he guessed the young scamps would presently go in full of
the story, and equally was conscious of having truly been in something
of a funk, as they had said. "But how did you manage to get it in?"

"Oh, we spotted him long before you did; Fred cut back for the saloon
gun while I waited here. My, though, but he's about the biggest
_lygovaan_ [Iguana] I've ever seen."

But although by the time they returned home Sellon and the boys had
become great friends; a number of swimming dodges which he taught them
having in a measure established him in their respect; yet when he
appeared at the breakfast-table he found the joke public property
already. But he was a man who could stand chaff--which was fortunate--
for he was destined to hear enough of it on the subject of the iguana
episode.

But he had matters to think of this morning beside which the above
incident was the merest thistledown for triviality; an undertaking on
hand, the key to which lay snug in his pocket in the shape of the
tiniest of notes; slipped into his hand, deftly and surreptitiously,
though under everybody's nose, during the process of exchanging
good-nights the evening before. Thus it ran--

"To-morrow. The garden. Middle of the morning. Watch me.--V."

The barest outline, but sufficient for all purposes. It had come, too,
just at the right time. He had felt nettled, annoyed, sore, at Violet's
light-heartedness. She had treated him as the merest stranger, and when
she talked to him, had rattled away at the veriest commonplaces. All
her captivating glances, all her dangerous modulations of tones, he had
kept for Fanning. Fanning it was who had engrossed the lion's share of
her attention throughout the evening. He had mentally cursed Fanning.
He could not make it out. He began to hate Fanning. Then, sore and
angry, that tiny bit of paper had come in the nick of time, and he had
slept soundly and risen in the best of spirits, as we have seen.

Yet as the time drew near his spirits sustained a check. That Violet
would find her oppo