e office, and at night hurrying to get away, and of
course we don't have neighbors, and it was so queer to find everybody
so friendly and interested that by the time we got back to Rose Hill he
looked like another man.

CHAPTER X

I took him down Princess Street first, of course, and showed him the
bank and post-office and moving-picture places, and the court-house and
churches and stores, and specially the drug-store, which is a sort of
standing-up club for the men; and I told him whose were the offices;
and Whythe came out of his and spoke to him in a perfectly perfect way,
and said he hoped he would be permitted to show him some of the things
of interest in the neighborhood. And also he said if it was convenient
to us he would call in a car (Whythe hasn't even a Ford, but he has a
Twin-Six manner) in the morning and we would drive to Horseshoe Falls,
and from there go on to Spruce Mountain, where something historic
happened during the Revolution, I think; and only once when talking did
he look right in my eyes. His sent a message, and my heart flopped
around so it felt like a frog in a can of milk, and, I was so afraid
Father would hear, I told Whythe we would go with pleasure and were
much obliged, but we couldn't stop any longer, as there was a good deal
to see before dinner. He shook hands twice with Father, who, when he
was out of hearing, asked me how a young man could leave his business
in the morning and go riding. I told him business could always be left
in Twickenham Town, and he laughed and said he wished he lived in a
town of that sort. I wish he did.

We stopped just a minute to speak to Mr. Bugg, who sells vegetables and
eggs and things, and whose wife has just had twins again, and this time
has a milk-leg also, and Father shook hands with him and asked about
the babies, I thinking just in time to tell him to do it, and then we
had some soda-water at Mrs. Grump's. It is the most awful soda-water
in the world, Mrs. Grump's is, but it is wet and cold, and you can sit
down when drinking it, and while we sat she touched up the town and
Father nearly fell out of his chair at the way she did it. If Mrs.
Grump were for sale, I'd sell everything I own to get enough to buy
her, for the way she can put into words what she thinks of human beings
would make a graven image come to life. She never smiles herself.

After we got through with Princess Street we turned in by Colonel
Rixby's and then went