l stall.

I'll circle high--as if passing by--
Then volplane, bank, and land.
Then if she'll smile I'll stop awhile,
And kiss her snow-white hand.

To toast her health and wish her wealth
I'll drink the Dipper dry.
Then say, "Hop in, and we'll take a spin,
For I'm a rider of the sky."

Through the clouds we'll float in my airplane boat--

Mary V flipped the rough paper over with so little tenderness that a
corner tore in her fingers, but the next page was blank. She made a sound
suspiciously like a snort, and threw the tablet down on the littered
table of the bunk house. After all, what did she care where they
floated--Venus and Johnny Jewel? Riding the sky with Venus when he knew
very well that his place was out in the big corral, riding some of those
broom-tail bronks that he was being paid a salary--a _good_ salary--for
breaking! Mary V thought that her father ought to be told about the way
Johnny was spending all his time--writing silly poetry about Venus. It
was the first she had ever known about his being a poet. Though it was
pretty punk, in Mary V's opinion. She was glad and thankful that Johnny
had refrained from writing any such doggerel about _her_. That would have
been perfectly intolerable. That he should write poetry at all was
intolerable. The more she thought of it, the more intolerable it became.

Just for punishment, and as a subtle way of letting him know what she
thought of him and his idiotic jingle, she picked up the tablet, found
the pencil Johnny had used, and did a little poetizing herself. She could
have rhymed it much better, of course, if she had condescended to give
any thought whatever to the matter, which she did not. Condescension went
far enough when she stooped to reprove the idiot by finishing the verse
that he had failed to finish, because he had already overtaxed his poor
little brain.

Stooping, then, to reprove, and flout, and ridicule, Mary V finished the
verse so that it read thus:

"Through the clouds we'll float in my airplane boat--
For Venus I am truly sorry!
All the stars you sight, you witless wight,
You'll see when you and Venus light!
But then--I'm sure that I should worry!"

Mary V was tempted to write more. She rather fancied that term "witless
wight" as applied to Johnny Jewel. It had a classical dignity which
atoned for the slang made necessary by her instant need of a rhyme for
sorry.

But there was the danger o