ead doggedly, shutting his eyes in a knowing
fashion. "Yes, sir, I am. There was a young lady in Ukiah--that was
when I was a lad of seventeen. We used to meet in the cemetery in the
afternoons. I was to go away to school at Sacramento, and the afternoon
I left we met in the cemetery and we stayed so long I almost missed the
train. Her name was Celestine."

There was a pause. The others waited for the rest of the story.

"And afterwards?" prompted Annixter.

"Afterwards? Nothing afterwards. I never saw her again. Her name was
Celestine."

The company raised a chorus of derision, and Osterman cried ironically:

"Say! THAT'S a pretty good one! Tell us another."

The old man laughed with the rest, believing he had made another hit. He
called Osterman to him, whispering in his ear:

"Sh! Look here! Some night you and I will go up to San Francisco--hey?
We'll go skylarking. We'll be gay. Oh, I'm a--a--a rare old BUCK, I am!
I ain't too old. You'll see."

Annixter gave over the making of the fifth bowl of punch to Osterman,
who affirmed that he had a recipe for a "fertiliser" from Solotari
that would take the plating off the ladle. He left him wrangling with
Caraher, who still persisted in adding chartreuse, and stepped out into
the dance to see how things were getting on.

It was the interval between two dances. In and around a stall at the
farther end of the floor, where lemonade was being served, was a great
throng of young men. Others hurried across the floor singly or by twos
and threes, gingerly carrying overflowing glasses to their "partners,"
sitting in long rows of white and blue and pink against the opposite
wall, their mothers and older sisters in a second dark-clothed rank
behind them. A babel of talk was in the air, mingled with gusts of
laughter. Everybody seemed having a good time. In the increasing heat
the decorations of evergreen trees and festoons threw off a pungent
aroma that suggested a Sunday-school Christmas festival. In the other
stalls, lower down the barn, the young men had brought chairs, and in
these deep recesses the most desperate love-making was in progress, the
young man, his hair neatly parted, leaning with great solicitation over
the girl, his "partner" for the moment, fanning her conscientiously, his
arm carefully laid along the back of her chair.

By the doorway, Annixter met Sarria, who had stepped out to smoke a fat,
black cigar. The set smile of amiability was still fixed on