It represented a love-bird of eagle size holding in its
powerful beak a scroll with a wreath of forget-me-nots on one end and of
orange-blossoms on the other, encircling respectively the initials.
"J.T." and "R.H." Below, in no less than four colors, ran the legend,
"Cupid's Token."

"O Lord! Dad!" cried the horrified Julien, scuffing it out with frantic
feet. "How long has this been there?"

"What're you doing? Leave it be!" cried the anguished artist. "It's been
there since noon."

"Never mind," put in Bobbie softly; "it's very pretty and tasteful even
though it is a little precipitate. But how"--she turned the lovely and
puzzled inquiry of her eyes upon the symbolist--"how did you know?"

"Artistic intuition," said Peter Quick Banta with profound complacency.
"_I'm_ an artist."

THE HOUSE OF SILVERY VOICES

Wayfarers on the far side of Our Square used to stop before Number 37
and wonder. The little house, it seemed, was making music at them.
"Kleam, kleam, kleam, kleam," it would pipe pleasantly.

"BHONG! BHONG! BHONG!" solemn and churchly, in rebuke of its own levity.

"Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_! Kung-_glang_!"
That was a duet in the middle register.

Then from some far-off aerie would ring the tocsin of an elfin
silversmith, fast, furious, and tiny:

"Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ping!"

We surmised that a retired Swiss bell-ringer had secluded himself in our
remote backwater of the great city to mature fresh combinations of
his art.

Before the Voices came, Number 37 was as quiet a house as any in the
Square. Quieter than most, since it was vacant much of the time and the
ceremonious sign of the Mordaunt Estate, "For Rental to Suitable
Tenant," invited inspection. "Suitable" is the catch in that
innocent-appearing legend. For the Mordaunt Estate, which is no estate
at all and never has been, but an ex-butcher of elegant proclivities
named Wagboom, prefers to rent its properties on a basis of prejudice
rather than profit, and is quite capable of rejecting an applicant as
unsuitable on purely eclectic grounds, such as garlic for breakfast, or
a glass eye.

How the new tenant had contrived to commend himself to Mr.
Mordaunt-Wagboom is something of a mystery. Probably it was his name
rather than his appearance, which was shiny, not to say seedy. He
encountered the Estate when that incorporated gentleman was engaged in
painting the front door, and, in a deprecati