of
mine; building a stable for him. Very level-headed man is Mr. Samuel
Lambert; no frills and no swelled head. It was Tommy Wing who was doing
the mandarin act 32 the other day at the Carlton--not me. Got dead
intimate with him on the voyage over and has stuck to him like a plaster
ever since. Calls him 'Sam' already--did to me."

"Behind his back or to his face?" spluttered Mac, tugging at his pipe.

"Give it up," said Lonnegan, pulling his hat over his face to shield his
eyes from the sun.

Mac raised himself to a sitting posture, as if to reply, fumbled in his
watch-pocket for a match, instead; shook the ashes from his brier-wood,
filled the bowl with some tobacco from his rubber pouch, drew the
lucifer across his shoe, waited until the blue smoke mounted skyward and
resumed his former position. He was too happy mentally--the girl in the
steamer chair was responsible--and too lazy physically to argue with
anybody. Lonnegan rolled over on his elbows, and feasted his eyes on
the sweep of the sleepy river, dotted with punts and wherries, its
background of foliage in silhouette against the morning sky. The Thames
was very lovely that June, and the trained eye of the distinguished
architect missed none of its beauty and charm. I picked up my brushes
and continued work. The spirit of perfect camaraderie makes such
silences not only possible but enjoyable. It is the restless chatterer
that tires.

Lonnegan's outbreak had set me to thinking. Lambert I knew only by
reputation---as half the world knew him--a man of the people: lumber
boss, mill owner, proprietor of countless acres of virgin forest; many
times a millionaire. Then came New York and the ice-cream palace with
the rock-candy columns on the Avenue, and "The Samuel Lamberts" in the
society journals. This was all the wife's doings. Poor Maria! She had
forgotten the day when she washed his red flannel shirts and hung them
on a line stretched from the door of their log cabin to a giant white
pine--one of the founders of their fortune. If Tommy Wing called him
"Sam" it was because old "Saw Logs," as he was often called, was lonely,
and Tommy amused him.

Tommy Wing--Thomas Bowditch Wing, his card ran--I had known for years.
He was basking on the topmost branches now, stretched out in the
sunshine of social success, swaying to every movement made by his
padrones. He was a little country squirrel when I first came across him,
frisking about the root of the tree and