, indeed, Mr. Barton," he insisted. "Oh, no--no indeed--I
assure you it won't inconvenience my daughter in the slightest! My
daughter is very obliging! My daughter, indeed--if I may say so
in all modesty--my daughter indeed is always a good deal of
a--philanthropist!"

Then very grandiloquently, like a man in an old-fashioned picture, he
began to back away from them, bowing low all the time, very, very low,
first to Barton, then to his daughter, then to Barton again.

"I wish you both a very good afternoon!" he said. "Really, I see no
reason why either of you should expect a single dull moment!"

[Illustration: "I would therefore respectfully suggest as a special
topic of conversation the consummate cheek of--yours truly, Paul
Reymouth Edgarton"]

Before the sickly grin on Barton's face his own smile deepened into
actual unctuousness. But before the sudden woodeny set of his
daughter's placid mouth his unctuousness twisted just a little bit
wryly on his lips.

"After all, my dear young people," he asserted hurriedly, "there's
just one thing in the world, you know, that makes two people
congenial, and that is--that they both shall have arrived at exactly
the same conclusion--by two totally different routes. It's got to be
exactly the same conclusion, else there isn't any sympathy in it. But
it's got to be by two totally different routes, you understand, else
there isn't any talky-talk to it!"

Laboriously one eyebrow began to jerk its way up his forehead, and
with a purely mechanical instinct he reached up drolly and pulled it
down again. "So--as the initial test of your mutual congeniality this
afternoon," he resumed, "I would therefore respectfully suggest as a
special topic of conversation the consummate cheek of--yours truly,
Paul Reymouth Edgarton!"

Starting to bow once more, he backed instead into the screen of the
office window. Without even an expletive he turned, pushed in the
screen, clambered adroitly through the aperture, and disappeared
almost instantly from sight.

Very faintly from some far up-stairs region the thin, faint, single
syllable of a laugh came floating down into the piazza corner.

Then just as precipitous as a man steps into any other hole, Barton
stepped into the conversational topic that had just been so aptly
provided for him.

"Is your father something of a--of a practical joker, Miss Edgarton?"
he demanded with the slightest possible tinge of shrillness.

For the first tim