bad
eye."

"That one-eyed man? He's been here several times, hasn't he? Why does
he come?"

"Fo' commercial puhposes, suh."

"Oh, a pedlar?"

"He mentions a desiah, suh, to dispose, commercially, of vahious
impo'ted materials requiahed by ahtists."

"Didn't you show him the sign in the hall, 'No pedlars allowed'?"

"Yaas, suh."

"What did he say?"

"I would not demean myse'f to repeat what this human objec' said,
suh."

"And what did you do then?"

"Mistuh Barres, suh, I totally igno'hed that man," replied Aristocrates
languidly.

"Quite right. But you tell Soane to enforce the rule against pedlars.
Every day there are two or three of them ringing at the studio, trying
to sell colours, laces, or fake oriental rugs. It annoys me. Selinda
can't hear the bell and I have to leave my work and open the door.
Tell that persistless one-eyed man to keep away. Tell Soane to bounce
him next time he enters Dragon Court. Do you understand?"

"Yaas, suh. But Soane, suh, he's a might friendly Irish. He's spo'tin'
'round Grogan's nights, 'longa this here one-eyed 'viduality. Yaas,
suh. I done seen 'em co-gatherin' on vahious occasionalities."

"Oho!" commented Barres. "It's graft, is it? This one-eyed pedlar
meets Soane at Grogan's and bribes him with a few drinks to let him
peddle colours in Dragon Court! That's the Irish of it, Aristocrates.
I began to suspect something like that. All right. I'll speak to Soane
myself.... Leave the studio door open; it's warm in here."

* * * * *

The month of May was now turning somewhat sultry as it melted into
June. Every pivot-pane in the big studio window had been swung wide
open. The sun had already clothed every courtyard tree with dense and
tender foliage; hyacinth and tulip were gone and Soane's subscription
geraniums blazed in their place like beds of coals heaped up on the
grass plot of Dragon Court.

But blue sky, sunshine of approaching summer, gentle winds and
freshening rains brought only restlessness to New Yorkers that month
of May.

Like the first two years of the war, the present year seemed strange,
unreal; its vernal breezes brought no balm, its blue skies no content.
The early summer sunlight seemed almost uncanny in a world where,
beyond the sea, millions of men at arms swayed ceaselessly under sun
and moon alike, interlocked in one gigantic death grip!--a horrible
and blood-drenched human chain of butchery stretching hal