easily they come up. Ah, that
fellow broke! They're apt to. There, I won't bother to reset them, but
tell your man to slope them over from the sun. That's the idea."

Beverly-Jones showed his new boat-house next and Poppleton knocked a
hole in the side with a hammer to show that the lumber was too thin.

"If that were _my_ boat-house," he said, "I'd rip the outside clean off
it and use shingle and stucco."

It was, I noticed, Poppleton's plan first to imagine Beverly-Jones's
things his own, and then to smash them, and then give them back smashed
to Beverly-Jones. This seemed to please them both. Apparently it is a
well-understood method of entertaining a guest and being entertained.
Beverly-Jones and Poppleton, after an hour or so of it, were delighted
with one another.

Yet somehow, when I tried it myself, it failed to work.

"Do you know what I would do with that cedar summer-house if it was
mine?" I asked my host the next day.

"No," he said.

"I'd knock the thing down and burn it," I answered.

But I think I must have said it too fiercely. Beverly-Jones looked hurt
and said nothing.

Not that these people are not doing all they can for me. I know that.
I admit it. If I _should_ meet my end here and if--to put the thing
straight out--_my_ lifeless body is found floating on the surface of
this pond, I should like there to be documentary evidence of _that_
much. They are trying their best. "This is Liberty Hall," Mrs.
Beverly-Jones said to me on the first day of my visit. "We want you to
feel that you are to do absolutely as you like!"

Absolutely as I like! How little they know me. I should like to have
answered: "Madam, I have now reached a time of life when human society
at breakfast is impossible to me; when any conversation prior to eleven
a.m. must be considered out of the question; when I prefer to eat my
meals in quiet, or with such mild hilarity as can be got from a comic
paper; when I can no longer wear nankeen pants and a coloured blazer
without a sense of personal indignity; when I can no longer leap and
play in the water like a young fish; when I do not yodel, cannot sing
and, to my regret; dance even worse than I did when young; and when the
mood of mirth and hilarity comes to me only as a rare visitant--shall
we say at a burlesque performance--and never as a daily part of my
existence. Madam, I am unfit to be a summer guest. If this is Liberty
Hall indeed, let me, oh, let me go!"

Such is t