e got a vacationist's usual partiality for
pretty girls. But Great Heavens!" he began, all over again. "Of all
the stupid--!"

"But you live like such a fool--of course you're bored," resumed the
Older Man.

"There you are at it again!" stormed the Younger Man with tempestuous
resentment.

"Why shouldn't I be 'at it again'?" argued the Older Man mildly.
"Always and forever picking out the showiest people that you can
find--and always and forever being bored to death with them
eventually, but never learning anything from it--that's you! Now
wouldn't that just naturally suggest to any observing stranger that
there was something radically idiotic about your method of life?"

"But that Miss Von Eaton looked like such a peach!" protested the
Younger Man worriedly.

"That's exactly what I say," droned the Older Man.

"Why, she's the handsomest girl here!" insisted the Younger Man
arrogantly.

"That's exactly what I say," droned the Older Man.

"And the best dresser!" boasted the Younger Man stubbornly.

"That's exactly what I say," droned the Older Man.

"Why, just that pink paradise hat alone would have knocked almost any
chap silly," grinned the Younger Man a bit sheepishly.

"Humph!" mused the Older Man still droningly. "Humph! When a chap
falls in love with a girl's hat at a summer resort, what he ought to
do is to hike back to town on the first train he can catch--and go
find the milliner who made the hat!"

"Hike back to--town?" gibed the Younger Man. "Ha!" he sneered. "A chap
would have to hike back a good deal farther than 'town' these days to
find a girl that was worth hiking back for! What in thunder's the
matter with all the girls?" he queried petulantly. "They get stupider
and stupider every summer! Why, the peachiest debutante you meet the
whole season can't hold your interest much beyond the stage where you
once begin to call her by her first name!"

Irritably, as he spoke, he reached out for a bright-covered magazine
from the great pile of books and papers that sprawled on the wicker
table close at his elbow. "Where in blazes do the story-book writers
find their girls?" he demanded. Noisily with his knuckles he began to
knock through page after page of the magazine's big-typed
advertisements concerning the year's most popular story-book heroines.
"Why--here are no end of story-book girls," he complained, "that could
keep a fellow guessing till his hair was nine shades of white! Look at
the cor