not, and why did you call me."

Icicles began to hang from the roof. Mr. Neelands would have been
well pleased if they had fallen on him, or a horse had kicked him--or
anything.

He blushed a ripe tomato red. Bertie, deeply grieved, reviewed the
situation.

"He said he wanted to see the teachers, and I just went and got
you--that's all--you were the nearest teacher."

"Awfully sorry," began Mr. Neelands, "I did not know anything about
it. I'm am just a stranger, you see."

There was something in Miss Morrison's eye which simply froze the
library proposition. He could not frame the words.

"If you have any business with me you may make an appointment at the
school. People who have business with the teachers generally do come
to the school--not to the livery stable," she added, in exactly the
tone in which she would have said "All who have failed to get fifty
per cent. in arithmetic will remain after four," a tone which would be
described as stern, but just.

Mr. Neelands leaned against a box-stall as Miss Morrison passed out.
He wiped his face with the polka-dot handkerchief, and the word which
the Cabinet Minister had used came easily to his lips.

"Why didn't you speak to her when you got a chance?" asked Bertie,
anxious to divert the blame and meet railing with railing. He was
always getting in wrong just trying to help people. Darn it all! Mr.
Neelands could still think of no word but the one.

"I wish it had been Pearl," said Bertie, "Gee! she wouldn't ha' been
so sore; she'd just laughed and jollied about it."

"So you know Pearl, do you?" Mr. Neelands could feel a revival of
interest in life; also the stiffness began to leave his lips, and his
tongue felt less like tissue paper.

"I guess everyone knows Pearl," said Bertie, with a consciousness of
superiority on at least one point. Whereupon he again fulfilled the
promises of youth, the leadings of his birth star and the promptings
of his spirit guides, and told all he knew about the whole Watson
family, not forgetting the roses he had taken to her, and Mrs. Crock's
diagnosis of it all.

He had an interested listener to it all, and under the inspiration
which a sympathetic hearing gives he grew eloquent, and touched with
his fine fancy the romantic part of it.

"Mrs. Crocks says she believes Pearl is pretty sweet on the Doctor.
Pearl is one swell girl, and all that, but Mrs. Crocks says the Doctor
will likely marry the Senator's daughter. Gee! I w