interest.

"Why, Duke's a little dog!" Margaret intervened. "Of COURSE, if it was
little, it must have been Duke."

"It WAS little," said Mr. Blakely too enthusiastically. "It was a little
bit of a dog. I noticed it because it was so little."

"Couldn't 'a' been Duke, then," said Penrod. "Duke's a kind of a
middle-sized dog." He yawned, and added: "I don't want him now. I want
to stay in the house this afternoon, anyway. And it's better for Duke to
be out in the fresh air."

Mr. Blakely coughed again and sat down, finding little to say. It was
evident, also, that Margaret shared his perplexity; and another silence
became so embarrassing that Penrod broke it.

"I was out in the sawdust-box," he said, "but it got kind of chilly."
Neither of his auditors felt called upon to offer any comment, and
presently he added, "I thought I better come in here where it's warmer."

"It's too warm,"' said Margaret, at once. "Mr. Blakely, would you mind
opening a window?"

"By all means!" the young man responded earnestly, as he rose. "Maybe
I'd better open two?"

"Yes," said Margaret; "that would be much better."

But Penrod watched Mr. Blakely open two windows to their widest, and
betrayed no anxiety. His remarks upon the relative temperatures of
the sawdust-box and the library had been made merely for the sake of
creating sound in a silent place. When the windows had been open for
several minutes, Penrod's placidity, though gloomy, denoted anything but
discomfort from the draft, which was powerful, the day being windy.

It was Mr. Blakely's turn to break a silence, and he did it so
unexpectedly that Margaret started. He sneezed.

"Perhaps--" Margaret began, but paused apprehensively.
"Perhaps-per-per--" Her apprehensions became more and more poignant; her
eyes seemed fixed upon some incredible disaster; she appeared to inflate
while the catastrophe she foresaw became more and more imminent. All at
once she collapsed, but the power decorum had over her was attested by
the mildness of her sneeze after so threatening a prelude.

"Perhaps I'd better put one of the windows down," Mr. Blakely suggested.

"Both, I believe," said Margaret. "The room has cooled off, now, I
think."

Mr. Blakely closed the windows, and, returning to a chair near Margaret,
did his share in the production of another long period of quiet. Penrod
allowed this one to pass without any vocal disturbance on his part. It
may be, however, that his gaze wa