king the
passage between the two craft carefully but jerkily, in the wake of
Alderson and Enderby. Once on the small boat he separated himself from
his companions, found a secluded spot at the rail, well aft, and
tactfully turned his back upon the Grouch group.

Evolutionists assert that we all possess some characteristic, however
vague, of all the forms into which the life-stock has differentiated.
Upon this theory the Tyro must have had in his make-up a
disproportionate share of the common house-fly, which, we are taught,
rejoices in eyes all around its head. For, though he sedulously averted
his face from the pair in whom his interest centered, he was perfectly
aware of what they were doing.

First Little Miss Grouch glanced at him and said something. Then her
father glared at him and said something. Then she turned toward him
again and made another remark. Then the disgruntled parent glowered
more fiercely and said a worse thing than he had said before. Then both
of them regarded him until his ears flushed and swelled to their
farthest tips.

All of which was a triumph of the visual imagination. As a matter of
fact they weren't talking about him at all. Little Miss Grouch was
afraid to. And her stern parent didn't even know who he was. The subject
of their conversation was, largely, the Battery Place house.

Still continuing to imagine a vain thing, the Tyro felt the gentlest
little pressure on his arm.

"Such a deep-brown, brown study!" said Little Miss Grouch's gay little
voice, at his elbow.

The Tyro turned with a sigh, quickly succeeded by a smile. It was very
hard not to smile, just for pure joy of the eye, when Little Miss Grouch
was in the foreground.

"Why the musing melancholy?" she pursued.

"I'm coming out of Fairyland into the Realm of Realities," he
explained. "And I don't believe in realities any more."

"I'm a reality," she averred.

"No." He shook his head. "You're a figment. I made you up, myself, in a
burst of creative genius."

"Just like that? Right out of your head?"

"Out of my heart," he corrected.

"Then why not have moulded me nearer to the heart's desire?" she queried
cunningly. "Do you still think I'm homely?"

He shut his eyes firmly. "I do."

"And cross?"

"A regular virago."

"And ugly, and messy and an idiot--"

"Hold on! You're double-crossing the indictment. I'm the offended
idiot," declared the Tyro, opening his eyes upon her.

She took advantage of his i