-of-Life told Mary to be quiet. I poured the philanthropist a glass
of water. Then, exchanging eloquent glances, we learned of the new
pleasure in store for us.

"They make very nice pets," declared the donor, beaming with
benevolence. "Large specimens live for hundreds of years. They are not
at all exacting about their food and can be trained to eat from the
hand."

"Not from mine," screamed Mary, bouncing up and down on her chair.

"Wasn't it Pierre Loti who had a pet tortoise?" continued Emily. "Its
name was Suleima and it used to play with his white kitten. You might
name the turtle Suleima, after its literary cousin."

"No. We'll name it Emilius, after you, if it must be named at all."

"But we haven't even a black kitten," protested Joy-of-Life, "and so
little time for playing ourselves, that I am really afraid----"

"The dear might be dull. Wouldn't you better take him back to where you
found him?"

"And leave him on the road? Lost? For motors to run over? How could he
get out of their way? What does he know about motors?"

We admitted that he did not look modern.

"Besides, I must run to catch that next train. I've just remembered
that I am due at the Melting Pot conference in town."

"Isn't there room for Emilius in the pot?" I called after her, but she
was gone without waiting to be thanked.

"If ye'll put the baste in a suitcase," proposed Mary, "it's mesilf
will take it over to her rooms an' lave it there."

But Young Audubon, who had been lying on the floor, examining Emilius
from the tip of his tail to the snub of his snout, was enraptured,--so
enraptured that the chelonian, as he called it, was pressed upon him as
a free gift, regretfully declined because of certain prejudices on the
part of a devoted but unscientific mother.

"I can study him almost as well over here," cheerily said Young
Audubon. "Now the first thing to do is to drill a hole in his
carapace."

"Carry what?"

"Upper shell, you know."

The boy, a blond, blushed pink at our ignorance and managed, in an
offhand way, to touch the lower shell when he lightly referred to it as
the plastron.

"The drilling won't hurt him. He won't even know it's happening."

Whatever the darkened spirit, inaccessible in its armor, thought of the
subsequent proceedings, it registered no objection. Defenseless in his
undignified position, Emilius suffered our well-meant attentions in
bitter silence. The hole was drilled, the turtle tipped o