t
novel when I am twenty. It will have a somber theme, something after the
manner of Turgenieff. Do you not find Turgenieff very stimulating?"

"Harold," says I, "all them Hungarian wines are more or less heady, and a
kid like you shouldn't monkey with any of 'em."

He looks almost pained at that. "You're chaffing me now, I suppose," says
he. "That sort of thing, though, I never indulge in. Humor, you know, is
but froth on the deep seas of thought. It has never seemed to me quite
worth one's while. You will pardon my frankness, I know."

"Harold," says I, "you're a wizard. So it's nix on the josh, eh?"

"What singular metaphors you employ!" says he. "Do you know, I can hardly
follow you. However, colloquial language does not offend my ear. It is
only when I see it in print that I shudder."

"Me too," says I. "I'm just as sore on these foreign languages as anyone.
So you're visitin' next door, eh? Enjoyin' yourself?"

That was a plain cue for Harold Burbank to launch out on the story of his
life; but, say, he didn't need any such encouragement. He was a willin'
and ready converser, Harold was; and--my!--what a lot of classy words he
did have on tap! First off I wondered how it was a youngster like him
could dig up so many; but when I'd heard a little more about him I could
account for it all.

He'd cut his teeth, as you might say, on the encyclopedia. Harold's
father had been a professor of dead languages, and I guess he must have
died of it. Anyway, Mother was a widow, and from things Harold dropped I
judged she was more or less frisky, spendin' her time at bridge and
chasin' teas and dinner parties. It was clear she wa'n't any highbrow,
such as Father must have been. All of which was disappointin' to Harold.
He made no bones of sayin' so.

"Why pretend to approve of one's parent," says he, "when approval is
undeserved?"

There was a lot of other folks that Harold disapproved of too. In fact,
he was a mighty critical youth, only bein' able to entertain a good
opinion of but one certain party. At any other time I expect he'd have
given me an earache; but I'd been handed so much silence by our double
Romeo-Juliet bunch that most any kind of conversation was welcome just
then. So I lets him spiel away.

And, say, he acts like he was hungry for the chance. Why, he gives me his
ideas on every subject you could think of, from the way Napoleon got
himself started on the toboggan, to the folly of eatin' fried ham for