inner."

But my friend at my elbow had very little of the _sotto_ in his _voce_.
He began in this way:

"Ahem! I hear you can be funny." No response from person addressed. Then
to himself: "I don't much believe she can do anything--don't look like
it." To me: "Well, now, if you _can_ be funny, why don't you?" I could
not help laughing then. "Yes, if you can, you ought to go into the
parlor every night and show what you can do, and amuse us. It is your
duty. Why, I told Quilletts--you know 'bout Quilletts? awfully funny
feller; good company, you see--says I, 'Quilletts, I like you. Now, if
you'll stay I'll give you a cottage, rent free, all summer (I've got an
island home--lots of us fellers on it--great times we have); but you
must agree to be funny every night, and keep the ball a-rollin'.' Now
we want you to get up and do something to entertain the guests. We want
to be amused--somethin' that will set us laughin'!"

I replied: "Mr. Brushwood, I understand you are a dealer in tobacco?"

"Yes, mum; and you won't find finer tobacker anywhere in this world than
what's got my name on it. Here's a picture of my store. Why, Brushwood's
tobacker is known all over the United States."

"Yes? Well, when I notice you freely distributing that tobacco, bunches
of your choicest brands, papers of the very best for chewing, cigarettes
by the dozen, in the parlor evenings, I'll follow on just behind you,
and try to amuse as a condensed circus. I'm not lacking in philanthropy.
I only need to be roused by your noble example, sustained by your
influence."

Brushwood looked disgusted, grunted his disapproval, backed his chair
out from the table, and as he walked to the door of the dining-room many
heard him mutter, "She's a queer dick; don't amount to much, anyway;
thought so when I first saw her; impudent, too!"

As the farmer remarked when he first encountered a sportsman dude, "What
things a feller does meet when he hasn't got his gun!"

But the train is slowing up, and see, Judge Brown, my old friend of The
Anchorage, is looking for us. No! No "Glenwood"; no "Arlington"; no
"kerridge"!

CHAPTER IX.

RIVERSIDE.

"Knowest thou the land where the lemon trees bloom,
Where the golden orange grows in the deep thickets' gloom,
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heavens blows,
And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose?"

Yes, that describes Riverside, and reads like a prophecy. If Pasadena is
a