im for his laziness while he was yet but scantily attired.
"I tell you, my good fellow, there are some things which the utmost
stretch of friendship will _not_ stand. Here am I in shirt and trousers
with only one sock on, and you dare to say you have had an adventure!
Why, if you had cut a piece out of the sun, you ought to wait till a man
is shaved before mentioning it."

"Don't be snappish, old boy!" laughed Errington gaily. "Put on that
other sock and listen. I don't want to tell those other fellows just
yet, they might go making inquiries about her--"

"Oh, there is a 'her' in the case, is there?" said Lorimer, opening his
eyes rather widely. "Well, Phil! I thought you had had enough, and
something too much, of women."

"This is not a woman!" declared Philip with heat and eagerness, "at
least not the sort of woman _I_ have ever known! This is a
forest-empress, sea-goddess, or sun-angel! I don't know _what_ she is,
upon my life!"

Lorimer regarded him with an air of reproachful offense.

"Don't go on--please don't!" he implored. "I can't stand it--I really
can't! Incipient verse-mania is too much for me. Forest-empress,
sea-goddess, sun-angel--by Jove! what next? You are evidently in a very
bad way. If I remember rightly, you had a flask of that old green
Chartreuse with you. Ah! that accounts for it! Nice stuff, but a little
too strong."

Errington laughed, and, unabashed by his friend's raillery, proceeded to
relate with much vivacity and graphic fervor the occurrences of the
morning. Lorimer listened patiently with a forbearing smile on his open,
ruddy countenance. When he had heard everything he looked up and
inquired calmly--

"This is not a yarn, is it?"

"A yarn!" exclaimed Philip. "Do you think I would invent such a thing?"

"Can't say," returned Lorimer imperturbably. "You are quite capable of
it. It's a very creditable crammer, due to Chartreuse. Might have been
designed by Victor Hugo; it's in his style. Scene, Norway--midnight.
Mysterious maiden steals out of a cave and glides away in a boat over
the water; man, the hero, goes into cave, finds a stone coffin,
says--'Qu'est-ce que c'est? Dieu! C'est la mort!' Spectacle affreux!
Staggers back perspiring; meets mad dwarf with torch; mad dwarf talks a
good deal--mad people always do,--then yells and runs away. Man comes
out of cave and--and--goes home to astonish his friends; one of them
won't be astonished,--that's me!"

"I don't care," said Err