re never stirred by a simple
tune, but the climax of an opera tumbles him over and over in ecstasy.
He is one of the truest of friends, and he is as game as a brook
trout. He has associated with drunkards, but was never drunk; and
during his early days in Chicago he lived with gamblers, but he came
out an honorable man."

"I have been reading his novels," said Henry, "and in places he is as
sharp as broken glass."

"Yes, but he is too much given to didacticism. Out of mischief I tell
him that he sets up a theory, calls it a character, and talks through
it. But he is strong, and his technique is fine."

"In Paris he would have been a great man," Henry replied.

They got off at a milk station and strolled along a road. A piece of
newspaper fluttered on the ground in front of them.

"There is just enough of a breeze to stir a scandal," said Richmond,
treading upon the paper.

"When I find a newspaper in an out-of-the-way place," Henry replied,
"I fancy that the world has lost one of its visiting-cards."

They stopped at a farm-house, engaged a boat, and then went down to
the lake. Nature wore a thoughtful, contemplative smile, and the lake
was a dimple. A flawless day; an Indian summer day, gauzed with a
glowing haze. And the smaller trees, in recognition of this
grape-juice time of year, had adorned themselves in red. October, the
sweetest and mellowest stanza in God Almighty's poem--the dreamy,
lulling lines between hot Summer's passion and Winter's cold severity.
On the train they had been boys, but now they were men, looking at the
tranquil, listening to the immortal.

"Did you speak?" Henry asked.

"No," said Richmond, "it was October."

They floated out on the lake. Mud-hens, in their midsummer fluttering,
had woven the rushes into a Gobelin tapestry. The deep notes of the
old frog were hushed, but in an out-of-the-way nook the youngster was
trying his voice on the water-dog. A dragon-fly lighted on a stake and
flashed a sunbeam from his bedazzled wing; and a bright bug, like a
streak of blue flame, zigzagged his way across the smooth water.

An hour passed. "They won't bite," said Richmond. "In this pervading
dreaminess they have forgotten their materialism."

"Probably they are tired of minnows," Henry replied. "Suppose we try
frogs."

"No, I have sworn never to bait with another frog. It's too much like
patting a human being on a hook. The last frog I used reached up, took
hold of the hook and tri