Uncle," she gasped finally. "He said he'd be quits
with the real estate agent before he left. How perfectly absurd! And are
those the creatures in that box?"

"The first couple of hundred of 'em, miss."

"Two hundred!" Again the access of laughter swelled the rounded bosom as
the breeze fills a sail. "Where did you get them?"

"Woodpile, ash-heap, garbage-pail," said the young man stolidly. "Any
particular kind preferred, Miss Ackroyd?"

The girl looked at him with suspicion, but his face was blankly
innocent.

"I'm not Miss Ackroyd," she began with emphasis, when a querulous voice
from an inner room called out: "Whom are you talking to, Sylvia?"

"A young man with a boxful of beetles," returned the girl, adding in
brisk French: "Il est tres amusant ce farceur. Je ne le comprends pas du
tout. Cest une blague, peut-etre. Si on l'invitait dans la maison pour
un moment?"

Through one of the air-holes, considerately punched in the cardboard
cover of the box, a sturdy crawler had succeeded in pushing himself.
He was, in the main, of a shiny and well-groomed black, but two large
patches of crimson gave him the festive appearance of being garbed in
a brilliant sash. As he stood rubbing his fore-legs together in
self-congratulation over his exploit, his bearer addressed him in French
quite as ready as the girl's:

"Permettez-moi, Monsieur le Colioptere, de vous presenter mes excuses
pour cette demoiselle qui s'exprime en langue etrangere chez elle."

"Don't apologize to the beetle on my account," retorted the girl with
spirit. "You're here on your own terms, you know, both of you."

Average Jones mutely held up the box in one hand and the advertisement
in the other. The adventurer-bug flourished a farewell to the girl with
his antennae, and retired within to advise his fellows of the charms of
freedom.

"Very well," said the girl, in demure tones, though lambent mirth still
flickered, golden, in the depths of the brown eyes. "If you persist,
I can only suggest that you come back when Judge Ackroyd is here.
You won't find him particularly amenable to humor, particularly when
perpetrated by a practical joker in masquerade."

"Discovered," murmured Average Jones. "I shouldn't have vaunted my poor
French. But must I really take my little friends all the way back? You
suggested to the mystic voice within that I might be invited inside."

"You seem a decidedly unconventional person," began the other with
dawning disf