d planning a bombardment
of his pattest phrases for the complete capitulation of his Uncle
Jaffry.

While Genevieve Remington in her snug library, so eager in her
wifeliness to clamber up to her husband's small planks, and if need
be, spread her prettily flounced skirts over the rotting places, was
memorizing, with more pride than understanding, extracts from the
controversial article for quotation at the Woman's Club meeting, Mr.
Penfield Evans, with a determination which considerably expanded his
considerable chest measurement, ran two at a bound up the white stone
steps of Mrs. Gallup's private boarding-house and pulled out the white
china knob of a bell that gave no evidence of having sounded within, and
left him uncertain to ring again.

A cast-iron deer, with lichen growing along its antlers, stood poised
for instant flight in Mrs. Gallup's front yard.

While Mr. Evans waited he regarded its cast-iron flanks, but not
seeingly. His rather the expression of one who stares into the future
and smiles at what he sees.

Erie Street, shaded by a double row of showy chestnuts, lay in summer
calm. A garden hose with a patent attachment spun spray over an
adjoining lawn and sent up a greeny smell. Out from under the striped
awning of Hassebrock's Ice Cream Parlor, cat-a-corner, Percival
Pauncefort Sheridan, in rubber-heeled canvas shoes and white trousers,
cuffed high, emerged and turned down Huron Street, making frequent
forays into a bulging rear pocket.

Miss Lydia Chipley, vice-president of the Busy Bee Sewing and Civic
Club, cool, starchy and unhatted, clicked past on slim, trim heels,
all radiated by the reflection from a pink parasol, gay embroidery bag
dangling.

"Hello, Lyd!"

"Hello, Pen!"

"What's your hurry?"

"It's my middle name."

"Why hurry, when the future is always waiting?"

"Why aren't you holding your partner's head since he committed political
suicide in the _Sentinel_?"

"I'd rather hold your head, Lyd, any day in the week."

"Gaul," said Miss Chipley, passing on, her sharply etched little face
glowing in the pink reflection of the parasol, "is bounded on the north
by Mrs. Gallup's boarding-house, and on the south by----"

"By the Frigid Zone!"

Then the door from behind swung open. Mr. Penfield Evans stepped into
Mrs. Gallup's cool, exclusive parlor of better days, and delivering his
card to a moist-fingered maid, sat himself among the shrouded furniture
to await Mrs. Alys Brews