"Humph!" says she. "I believe it's that fool nephew of mine."

"Not Merry?" says I.

"It must be," says she. "And goodness knows why he's out making an
idiot of himself at this time of night! He'll arouse the whole
neighbourhood."

"Why, I was just thinkin' how classy it was," says I.

"Bah!" says Aunty. "A lot you know about it. Are you dressed, young
man?"

I admits that I am.

"Then I wish you'd go down there and see if it is Merry," says she.
"If it is, tell him I say to come home and go to bed."

"And if it ain't?" says I.

"Go along and see," says she.

I begun to be sorry for Merry. I'd rather pay board than live with a
disposition like that. Down I pikes, out the front door and back
through the shrubby. Meantime the musician has finished "Promise Me"
and has switched to "Annie Laurie." It's easy enough to get the
gen'ral direction the sound comes from; but I couldn't place it exact.
First off I thought it must be from a little summer house down by the
shore; but it wa'n't. I couldn't see anyone around the grounds. Out
on the far end of the Hibbs's wharf, though, there was somethin' dark.
And a swell time I had too, buttin' my way through a five-foot hedge
and landin' in a veg'table garden. But I wades through tomatoes and
lettuce until I strikes a gravel path, and in a couple of minutes I'm
out on the dock just as the soloist is hittin' up "Believe Me, if All
Those Endearing Young Charms." Aunty had the correct dope. It's
Merry, all right. The first glimpse he gets of me he starts guilty and
tries to hide the cornet under the tails of his dress coat.

"No use, Merry," says I. "You're pinched with the poultry."

"Wha-a-at!" says he. "Oh, it's you, is it, Torchy? Please--please
don't mention this to my aunt."

"She beat me to it," says I. "It was her sent me out after you with a
stop order. She says for you to chop the nocturne and go back to the
hay."

"But how did she---- Oh, dear!" he sighs. "It was all her fault,
anyway."

"I don't follow you," says I. "But what was it, a serenade?"

"Goodness, no!" gasps J. Meredith. "Who suggested that?"

"Why, it has all the earmarks of one," says I. "What else would you be
doin', out playin' the cornet by moonlight on the dock, if you wa'n't
serenadin' someone?"

"But I wasn't, truly," he protests. "It--it was the champagne, you
know."

"Eh?" says I. "You don't mean to say you got stewed? Not on a couple
of glasses!"