ess," pursued the Mordaunt
Estate, stricken with gloom over the difficulty of finding the Perfect
Tenant in an imperfect world, "I'll have to notice her to quit."

"No; don't do that!" cried the young man. "Here! I'll repaint the whole
wall for you free of charge."

"What do _you_ know about R. Noovo art? Besides, paints cost money."

"I'll furnish the paint, too," offered the reckless youth. "I'm crazy
about art. It's the only solace of my declining years. And," he added
cunningly and with evil intent to flatter and cajole, "I can tone down
that design of yours without affecting its beauty and originality
at all."

Touched by this ingenuous tribute hardly less than by the appeal to his
frugality, the Estate accepted the offer. From four to five on the
following afternoon, Martin Dyke, appropriately clad in overalls, sat on
a plank and painted. On the afternoon following that the lady of the
house came home at four-thirty and caught him at it.

"That's going to be ever so much nicer," she called graciously, not
recognizing him from the view of his industrious-appearing back.

"Thank you for those few kind words."

"You!" she exclaimed indignantly as he turned a mild and benevolent beam
of the eye upon her. "What are you doing to my house?"

"Art. High art."

"How did you get up there?"

"Ladder. High ladder."

"You know that isn't what I mean at all."

"Oh! Well, I've taken a contract to tone down the Midway aspect of your
highly respectable residence. One hour per day."

"If you think that this performance is going to do you any good--" she
began with withering intonation.

"It's done that already," he hastened to assert. "You've recognized my
existence again."

"Only through trickery."

"On the contrary, it's no trick at all to improve on the Mordaunt
Estate's art. Now that we've made up again, Miss or Mrs. Leffingwell, as
the case may be--"

"We haven't made up. There's nothing to make up."

"Amended to 'Now that we're on speaking terms once more.' Accepted?
Thank you. Then let me thank you for those lovely flowers you've been
sending me. You can't imagine how they brighten and sweeten my simple
and unlovely van life, with their--"

"Mr. Dyke!" Her eyes were flashing now and her color was deeper than the
pink of the roses which she had rejected. "You must know that you had no
right to send me flowers and that in returning them--"

"Returning? But, dear lady--or girl, as the case may be [here