k at the front door and get sent home."

"Me--well, I'm a wage-slave of the VanZile Motor people, in charge of
the Touricar department. Age, twenty-eight--almost. Habits, all
bad.... No, I'll tell you. I'm one of those stern, silent men of
granite you read about, and only my man knows the human side of me,
because all the guys on Wall Street tremble in me presence."

"Yes, but then how can you belong to the Blue Bowl Sodality?"

"Um, Yes----I've got it. You must have read novels in which the stern,
silent man of granite has a secret tenderness in his heart, and he
keeps the band of the first cigar he ever smoked in a little safe in
the wall, and the first dollar he ever made in a frame--that's me."

"Of course! The cigar was given him by his flaxen-haired sweetheart
back in Jenkins Corners, and in the last chapter he goes back and
marries her."

"Not always, I hope!" Of what Carl was thinking is not recorded.
"Well, as a matter of fact, I've been a fairly industrious young man
of granite the last few months, getting out the Touricar."

"What is a Touricar? It sounds like an island inhabited by cannibals,
exports hemp and cocoanut, see pink dot on the map, nor' by nor'east
of Mogador."

Carl explained.

"I'm terribly interested," said Ruth. (But she made it sound as though
she really was.) "I think it's so wonderful.... I want to go off
tramping through the Berkshires. I'm so tired of going to the same old
places."

"Some time, when you're quite sure I'm an estimable young Y. M. C. A.
man, I'm going to try to persuade you to come out for a real tramp."

She seemed to be considering the idea, not seriously, but----

Philip Dunleavy eventuated.

For some time Philip had been showing signs of interest in Ruth and
Carl. Now he sauntered to the table, begged for another cup of tea,
said agreeable things in regard to putting orange marmalade in tea,
and calmly established himself. Ruth turned toward him.

Carl had fancied that there was, for himself, in Ruth's voice,
something more friendly, in her infectious smile something more
intimate than she had given the others, but when she turned precisely
the same cheery expression upon Philip, Carl seemed to have lost
something which he had trustingly treasured for years. He was the more
forlorn as Olive Dunleavy joined them, and Ruth, Philip, and Olive
discussed the engagement of one Mary Meldon. Olive recalled Miss
Meldon as she had been in school days at the Conve