content to
fiddle to himself and to the stars! Oh, my patience leaves me!" Again he
struck the logs, and a golden shower of sparks flew up the chimney.

"I don't know!" said Blake, placidly. "I'm not so sure that he isn't
getting the best of it, when all's said and done!"

Max reddened. "You make me angry with this 'I do not know!' and 'I am
not so sure!' The matter is like day. You cannot submerge your
personality and yet retain it."

"I don't know! I'd submerge mine to-morrow if I could find an _alter
ego_!"

"Then, _mon cher_, you are a fool!"

Blake drank his coffee meditatively. "Some say the fools are happier
than the wise men! I remember a poor fool of a boy at home in Clare who
used to say that he danced every night with the fairies on the rath, and
I often thought he was happier than the people who listened to him out
of pity, and shook their heads and laughed behind his back!"

Max looked up, and as he looked the anger died out of his eyes.

"Ned, _mon cher_, you are very patient with me!"

Blake turned. "What do you mean?"

"What I say--that you are patient. Why is it?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm fond of you, I suppose."

"I am, then, a good comrade?"

"The best."

"What is it you find in me?"

"I don't know! You are you."

"I amuse you?"

"You do--and more."

"More! In what way more?" Max drew nearer.

"Oh, I don't know! You're as amusing and spirited and generous as any
boy I've known, and yet you're different from any boy. You sometimes fit
into my thoughts almost like a woman might!" He hesitated, and laughed
at his own conceit.

Max, with an odd little movement of haste, drew away again.

"Do not say that, _mon ami_! Do not think it! I am your good comrade,
that is all."

"Of course you are! Sorry if I hurt your pride."

"You did not. It was not that." With an inexplicable change of mood Max
drew near again, and suddenly slipped his hand through Blake's arm.

They laughed in unison at the return to amity, and then fell silent,
looking into the fire, watching the blue spurt of the flames, the
feathery curls of ash on the charred logs.

"Ned! Make me one of your stories! Tell me what you are seeing in the
fire!"

Blake settled himself more comfortably.

"Well, boy, I was just seeing a castle," he began in the accepted manner
of the story-teller, and in his pleasant, soothing voice. "A great big
castle on the summit of a mountain, with a golden flag fluttering in the
sunset;