nk of
it, there's nothing much to the country, anyhow. You get tired and
sunburned and lonesome, and you have to eat any old thing that the
cook dishes up to you."

"It makes a difference, doesn't it?" said I.

"It certainly does. Now, I found some whitebait yesterday, at
Maurice's, with a new sauce that beats anything in the trout line I
ever tasted."

"It makes a difference, doesn't it?" I said.

"Immense. The sauce is the main thing with whitebait."

"It makes a difference, doesn't it?" I asked, looking him straight in
the eye. He understood.

"Look here, Bob," he said, "I was going to tell you. I couldn't help
it. I'll play fair with you, but I'm going in to win. She is the
'one particular' for me."

"All right," said I. "It's a fair field. There are no rights for you
to encroach upon."

On Thursday afternoon Miss Ashton invited North and myself to have
tea in her apartment. He was devoted, and she was more charming
than usual. By avoiding the subject of caps I managed to get a
word or two into and out of the talk. Miss Ashton asked me in a
make-conversational tone something about the next season's tour.

"Oh," said I, "I don't know about that. I'm not going to be with
Binkley & Bing next season."

"Why, I thought," said she, "that they were going to put the Number
One road company under your charge. I thought you told me so."

"They were," said I, "but they won't.. I'll tell you what I'm going
to do. I'm going to the south shore of Long Island and buy a small
cottage I know there on the edge of the bay. And I'll buy a catboat
and a rowboat and a shotgun and a yellow dog. I've got money enough
to do it. And I'll smell the salt wind all day when it blows from the
sea and the pine odor when it blows from the land. And, of course,
I'll write plays until I have a trunk full of 'em on hand.

"And the next thing and the biggest thing I'll do will be to buy that
duck-farm next door. Few people understand ducks. I can watch 'em
for hours. They can march better than any company in the National
Guard, and they can play 'follow my leader' better than the entire
Democratic party. Their voices don't amount to much, but I like to
hear 'em. They wake you up a dozen times a night, but there's a
homely sound about their quacking that is more musical to me than the
cry of 'Fresh strawber-rees!' under your window in the morning when
you want to sleep.

"And," I went on, enthusiastically, "do you know the value of duc