he patch of green spattered with dirty white which
variously simulated a daisy-field, a mountainside, and that part of
Central Park directly opposite the Fifth Avenue residence of the
millionaire counterfeiter, who, you remember, always comes out into
the street to plot with his confederates. Carl hated with peculiar
heartiness the anemic, palely varnished, folding garden bench, which
figured now as a seat in the moonshiner's den, and now, with a cotton
leopard-skin draped over it, as a fauteuil in the luxurious
drawing-room of Mrs. Van Antwerp. The garden bench was, however,
associated with his learning to make stage love to Miss Evelyn
L'Ewysse.

It was difficult to appear unconscious of fifty small boys all
smacking their lips in unison, while he kissed the air one centimeter
in front of Miss L'Ewysse's lips. But he learned the art. Indeed, he
began to lessen that centimeter of safety.

Miss Evelyn L'Ewysse (christened Lena Ludwig, and heir presumptive to
one of the best delicatessens in Newport News) reveled in love-making
on and off. Carl was attracted by her constantly, uncomfortably. She
smiled at him in the wings, smoothed her fluffy blond hair at him, and
told him in confidence that she was a high-school graduate, that she
was used to much, oh, _much_ better companies, and was playing under
canvas for a lark. She bubbled: "_Ach_, Louie, say, ain't it hot!
Honest, Mr. Ericson, I don't see how you stand it like you do.... Say,
honest, that was swell business you pulled in the third act last
night.... Say, I know what let's do--let's get up a swell act and get
on the Peanut Circuit. We'd hit Broadway with a noise like seventeen
marine bands.... Say, honest, Mr. Ericson, you do awful well for----I
bet you ain't no amachoor. I bet you been on before."

He devoured it.

One night, finding that Miss Evelyn made no comment on his holding her
hand, he lured her out of the tent during a long wait, trembled, and
kissed her. Her fingers gripped his shoulders agitatedly, plucked at
his sleeve as she kissed him back. She murmured, "Oh, you hadn't ought
to do that." But afterward she would kiss him every time they were
alone, and she told him with confidential giggles of Parker Heye's
awkward attempts to win her. Heye's most secret notes she read, till
Carl seriously informed her that she was violating a trust. Miss
Evelyn immediately saw the light and promised she would "never, never,
never do anythin' like that again,