ce the
swell little roadster I'm driving? Birthday! You'd almost think he looks
up to me. Says he expects great things of me."

"Why wouldn't he?" demanded the other.

"Oh, of course, of course!" Merle waved this aside. "And Grandfather
Gideon, he's an old brick. College man himself--class of sixty-five.
Think of that, way back in the last century! Sharon Whipple never got to
college. Ran off to fight in the Civil War or something. That's why he's
so countrified, I s'pose. You take Gideon now--he's a gentleman. Any one
could see that. Not like Sharon. Polished old boy you'd meet in a club.
And Mrs. Harvey D.--Mother--say, she can't do enough for me! Bores me
stiff lots of times about whether I'm not going to be sick or something.
And money--Lord! I'm supposed to have an allowance, but they all hand me
money and tell me not to say anything about it to the others. Of course
I don't. And Harvey D. himself--he tries to let on he's very strict
about the allowance, then he'll pretend he didn't pay me the last
quarter and hand me two quarters at once. He knows he's a liar, and he
knows I know it, too. I guess I couldn't have fallen in with a nicer
bunch. Even that funny daughter of Sharon's, Cousin Juliana, she warms
up now and then--slips me a couple of twenties or so. You should have
seen the hit I made at prep! Fellows there owe me money now that I bet I
never do get paid back. But no matter, of course."

"That Juliana always makes me kind of shiver," admitted Wilbur. "She
looks so kind of--well, kind of lemonish."

"She's all of that, that old girl. She's the only one I never do get
close to. Soured old maid, I guess. Looks at you a lot, but doesn't say
much, like she was sizing you up. That nose of hers certainly does stand
out like a peak or something. You wouldn't think it, either, but she
reads poetry--mushiest kind--awful stuff. Say, I looked into a book of
hers one day over at the Old Place--Something-or-Other Love Lyrics was
the title--murder! I caught two or three things--talk about raw
stuff--you know, fellows and girls and all that! What she gets out of
it beats me, with that frozen face of hers."

A little later he portrayed the character of Patricia Whipple in terms
that would have incensed her but that moved Wilbur to little but mild
interest.

"You never know when you got your thumb on that kid," he said. "She's
the shifty one, all right. Talk along to you sweet as honey, but all the
time she's watchin