nd bowed himself off. Then Aladdin executed an
unparalleled blush. He could feel it start in the small of his back and
spread all over him--up under the roots of his hair to the top of his
head. He should have felt proud, instead of which he was suffused with
shame. Margaret caught sight of his face.

"What is it, Aladdin?" she said in a whisper.

"Nothing."

"Won't you tell me?"

"It's nothing." He got redder and redder.

"Please."

With downcast eyes he shook his head. She looked at him dubiously and
a little pathetically for a moment. Then she said, "Silly goose," and
turned to Manners.

"Poor old crow!" said Manners. "I had one, Margaret, when I was little;
he had his wings clipped and used to follow me like a dog, and one day
he saw some of his old friends out on the salt-marsh, and he hopped out
to talk it over with them, and they set upon him and killed him. And
I couldn't get there quick enough to help him--I beg your pardon." He
picked up a fan and handed it to the girl on his left, and she, having
dropped it on purpose, blushed, thanked him, and giggled. Manners turned
to Margaret again. "Ever since then," he said, "when I have a gun in my
hand and see a crow, I want to kill him for the sake of the crows that
killed mine, and to let him go for the sake of mine, who was such a nice
old fellow. So it's an awful problem."

Aladdin sat and looked straight before him. "Is real fame as awful as
this?" he thought.

Somebody clapped him on the shoulder, and a hearty voice, something the
worse for wear, said loudly in his ear, "Bully, Aladdin, bully!"

Aladdin looked up and recognized that bad companion, Beau Larch.

"That's all right," Aladdin tried to say, but Mr. Larch would not be
downed.

"Wasn't it bully, Margaret?" he said.

"Oh--hallo--hallo, Beau!" said she, starting and turning round and
collecting her wits. "What? Wasn't what bully?"

Aladdin frowned at Larch with all the forbiddingness that he could
muster, but Larch was imperturbable.

"Why, Aladdin's song!" he said. "You know, the one about the old
crow--the one the man just sang."

Here a young lady, over whom Beau Larch was leaning, confided to her
escort in an audible, nervous voice that she knew Beau Larch had been
drinking, but she wouldn't say why she knew--anybody could see he had;
and then she sniffed with her nose by way of indicating that seeing was
not the only or best method of telling.

"You don't mean to say--" said Ma