n fat And tender abalone."

A black-haired, black-eyed man with the roguish face of a satyr, who,
Saxon learned, was an artist who sold his paintings at five hundred
apiece, brought on himself universal execration and acclamation by
singing:

"The more we take, the more they make In deep sea matrimony; Race
suicide cannot betide The fertile abalone."

And so it went, verses new and old, verses without end, all in
glorification of the succulent shellfish of Carmel. Saxon's enjoyment
was keen, almost ecstatic, and she had difficulty in convincing herself
of the reality of it all. It seemed like some fairy tale or book story
come true. Again, it seemed more like a stage, and these the actors, she
and Billy having blundered into the scene in some incomprehensible
way. Much of wit she sensed which she did not understand. Much she did
understand. And she was aware that brains were playing as she had
never seen brains play before. The puritan streak in her training was
astonished and shocked by some of the broadness; but she refused to sit
in judgment. They SEEMED good, these light-hearted young people; they
certainly were not rough or gross as were many of the crowds she had
been with on Sunday picnics. None of the men got drunk, although there
were cocktails in vacuum bottles and red wine in a huge demijohn.

What impressed Saxon most was their excessive jollity, their childlike
joy, and the childlike things they did. This effect was heightened
by the fact that they were novelists and painters, poets and critics,
sculptors and musicians. One man, with a refined and delicate face--a
dramatic critic on a great San Francisco daily, she was told--introduced
a feat which all the men tried and failed at most ludicrously. On the
beach, at regular intervals, planks were placed as obstacles. Then the
dramatic critic, on all fours, galloped along the sand for all the
world like a horse, and for all the world like a horse taking hurdles he
jumped the planks to the end of the course.

Quoits had been brought along, and for a while these were pitched with
zest. Then jumping was started, and game slid into game. Billy took part
in everything, but did not win first place as often as he had expected.
An English writer beat him a dozen feet at tossing the caber. Jim Hazard
beat him in putting the heavy "rock." Mark Hall out-jumped him standing
and running. But at the standing high back-jump Billy did come first.
Despite the handicap of