ossom in his button hole.

Pushing back her sailor hat, Alma looked obliquely at him from beneath
her drooping lids.

"Try me. Perhaps infection haunts the air. Spare us the Greek, come
down from your Yale and Harvard heights to the level of my ignorance,
and warble for me in English some of your Sicilian lark's melodies. At
least I have heard of Amaryllis and Simaetha."

Mr. Cutting shook his head.

"What--? Ashamed of your bucolic hobby! No wonder--since after all it's
only a goat. I dare you, brother mine, to produce me a Theocritan
fragment."

"Take the consequences of your rash levity; though I have a dawning
suspicion some 'Imp of the Perverse' has coached you for the occasion."

He stroked his mustache, pondered a moment, then struck an attitude,
and declaimed:

"I go a serenading to Amaryllis; what time my flocks browse on the
mountains, and Tityrus drives them. Tityrus beloved of me in the
highest degree, feed my flocks and lead them to the fountain, etc."

Mimicking his tone exactly, Alma finished the line:

"And mind, Tityrus, that tawny Libyan he-goat lest he butt thee!' Come,
Rivers; free translation is allowable, considering surroundings, but
not garbling; and every time you know you substituted flocks for goats.
Proceed, and do not insult your pet author with emendations."

With his hat on the back of his head, and his thumbs in the armholes of
his vest, Mr. Cutting resumed:

"Sweet Amaryllis! though by death defiled,
Thee shall I ne'er forget; dear to my heart
As are my frisking goats, thou did'st depart.
To what a lot--was I, unhappy, born!"

Again the mocking voice responded:

"But see! yon calves devour
The olive branches. Pelt them off I pray.

"Confound the calves! 'St--! you white-skin thief--away!' Thanks, no
more at present. Doubtless it sounds very fine in Greek, because then,
I could not possibly understand that it is the melody and the rhythmic
dance of bleating calves, and capering goats. Here come the stragglers
laden with plunder. Oh, papa! Do give me those exquisite acacia
clusters."

"My dear, I have ordered luncheon spread down there, in that strange
garden. It is the queerest place imaginable; and looking up, the effect
is quite indescribable."

"Have you had the skulls polished for drinking cups, and printed the
menus on cross-bones? What shocking taste to add insult to injury by
spreading all our wealth of canned dainties on the very