ainst
the rules," she warned him; "against all your preachments about reading
at meals!"

"That's so, Mary," said Jasper Ewold, absently, regarding the book as if
some wicked genius had placed it in his hand quite unbeknown to him.
"But, Mary, it is Professor Giuccamini at last! Giuccamini that I have
waited for so long! I beg your pardon, Sir Chaps! When I have somebody to
talk to I stand doubly accused. Books at dinner! I descend into dotage!"

In disgust he started toward the house with the book. But in the very
doorway he paused and, reopening the book, turned three or four pages
with ravenous interest.

"Giuccamini and I agree!" he shouted. "He says there is no doubt that
Burlamacchi and Pico were correct. Cosmo de' Medici did call Savonarola
to his death-bed, and I am glad of it. I like good stories to turn out
true! But here I have a listener--a live listener, and I ramble on about
dead tyrants and martyrs. I apologize--I apologize!" and he disappeared
in the library.

"Father does not let me leave books in the living-room, which is his.
Why should he bring them to the dining-room, which is mine?" Mary
explained.

"There must be law in every household," Jack agreed.

"Yes, somebody fresh to talk to, at, around, and through!" called Jasper
Ewold, as he reappeared. "Yes, and over your head; otherwise I shall not
be flattered by my own conversation."

"He glories in being an intellectual snob," Mary said. "Please pretend at
times not to understand him."

"Thank you, Mary. You are the corrective that keeps my paternal
superiority in balance," answered her father, with a comprehending wave
of his hand indicating his sense of humor at the same time as playful
insistence on his role as forensic master of the universe.

How he did talk! He was a mill to which all intellectual grist was
welcome. Over its wheel the water ran now singing, again with the roar of
a cataract. He changed theme with the relish of one who rambles at will,
and the emotion of every opinion was written on the big expanse of his
features and enforced with gestures. He talked of George Washington, of
Andrea del Sarto, of melon-growing, trimming pepper-trees, the Divina
Commedia, fighting rose-bugs, of Schopenhauer and of Florence--a great
deal about Florence, a city that seemed to hang in his mind as a sort of
Renaissance background for everything else, even for melon-growing.

"You are getting over my head!" Jack warned him at times, poli