--er--this what I've been reading! Sure I know turtles!" he
reiterated with increasing conviction. "Why, sure! Those--those
slow-crawling, box-like affairs that--live in the mud and are used for
soup and--er--combs," he continued blithely.

"The--very--same," nodded little Eve Edgarton soberly.

"Oh--Lordy!" groaned her father from the window.

"Oh, this is going to be lots better!" beamed Barton. "Now that I know
what it's all about--"

"For goodness' sake," growled Edgarton from his table, "how do you
people think I'm going to do any work with all this jabbering going
on!"

Hesitatingly for a moment Barton glanced back over his shoulder at
Edgarton, and then turned round again to probe Eve's preferences in
the matter. As sluggishly determinate as two black turtles trailing
along a white sand beach, her great dark eyes in her little pale face
seemed headed suddenly toward some Far-Away Idea.

"Oh--go right on reading, Mr. Barton," nodded little Eve Edgarton.

"Three superfamilies of turtles,"

began Barton all over again.

"Three superfamilies of turtles--the--the Amphichelydia, the
Cryptodira, and the Tri--the--Tri--the
T-r-i-o-n-y-c-h-o-i-d-e-a,"

he spelled out laboriously.

With a vicious jerk of his chair Edgarton snatched up his papers and
his orchids and started for the door.

[Illustration: "You're nice," he said. "I like you!"]

"When you people get all through this nonsense," he announced,
"maybe you'll be kind enough to let me know! I shall be in the
writing-room!" With satirical courtesy he bowed first to Eve, then to
Barton, dallied an instant on the threshold to repeat both bows, and
went out, slamming the door behind him.

"A nervous man, isn't he?" suggested Barton.

Gravely little Eve Edgarton considered the thought. "Trionychoidea,"
she prompted quite irrelevantly.

"Oh, yes--of course," conceded Barton. "But do you mind if I smoke?"

"No, I don't mind if you smoke," singsonged the girl.

With a palpable sigh of relief Barton lighted a cigarette. "You're
nice," he said. "I like you!" Conscientiously then he resumed his
reading.

"No--Pleurodira--have yet been found,"

he began.

"Yes--isn't that too bad?" sighed little Eve Edgarton.

"It doesn't matter personally to me," admitted Barton. Hastily he
moved on to the next sentence.

"The Amphichelydia--are known there by only the genus Baena,"

he read.

"Two described species: B. undat