's front door, when the son of the
house, followed by an intent and earnest company of four, opened the
alley gate and came into the yard. The unconscious Mrs. Bassett was
about to have her first experience of a fatal coincidence. It was her
first, because she was the mother of a boy so well behaved that he had
become a proverb of transcendency. Fatal coincidences were plentiful
in the Schofield and Williams families, and would have been familiar to
Mrs. Bassett had Georgie been permitted greater intimacy with Penrod and
Sam.

Mr. Kinosling sipped his iced tea and looked about, him approvingly.
Seven ladies leaned forward, for it was to be seen that he meant to
speak.

"This cool room is a relief," he said, waving a graceful hand in
a neatly limited gesture, which everybody's eyes followed, his own
included. "It is a relief and a retreat. The windows open, the blinds
closed--that is as it should be. It is a retreat, a fastness, a bastion
against the heat's assault. For me, a quiet room--a quiet room and a
book, a volume in the hand, held lightly between the fingers. A volume
of poems, lines metrical and cadenced; something by a sound Victorian.
We have no later poets."

"Swinburne?" suggested Miss Beam, an eager spinster. "Swinburne, Mr.
Kinosling? Ah, SWINBURNE!"

"Not Swinburne," said Mr. Kinosling chastely. "No."

That concluded all the remarks about Swinburne.

Miss Beam retired in confusion behind another lady; and somehow there
became diffused an impression that Miss Beam was erotic.

"I do not observe your manly little son," Mr. Kinosling addressed his
hostess.

"He's out playing in the yard," Mrs. Bassett returned. "I heard his
voice just now, I think."

"Everywhere I hear wonderful report of him," said Mr. Kinosling. "I
may say that I understand boys, and I feel that he is a rare, a fine, a
pure, a lofty spirit. I say spirit, for spirit is the word I hear spoken
of him."

A chorus of enthusiastic approbation affirmed the accuracy of this
proclamation, and Mrs. Bassett flushed with pleasure. Georgie's
spiritual perfection was demonstrated by instances of it, related by
the visitors; his piety was cited, and wonderful things he had said were
quoted.

"Not all boys are pure, of fine spirit, of high mind," said Mr.
Kinosling, and continued with true feeling: "You have a neighbour, dear
Mrs. Bassett, whose household I indeed really feel it quite impossible
to visit until such time when better, firm