ho would give their all for such a pal as you are--Jack!"

There was a fluttering among the butterflies; the artists had risen and
were standing waist-deep in the garden of gracious things; they were
coming to Paul and Miss. Juno, and in amusing pantomime announcing that
pangs of hunger were compelling their return to the cottage; the truth
is, it was long past the lunch hour--and a large music-box which had
been set in motion when the light repast was laid had failed to catch
the ear with its tinkling aria.

All four of the occupants of the garden turned leisurely toward the
cottage. Miss. Juno had rested her hand on Paul's shoulder and said in a
delightfully confidential way: "Let it be a secret that we are chums,
dear boy--the world is such an idiot."

"All right, Jack," whispered Paul, trying to hug himself in delight,
'Little secrets are cozy.'"

And in the scent of the roses it was duly embalmed.

III

Happy is the man who is without encumbrances--that that is if he knows
how to be happy. Whenever Paul Clitheroe found the burden of the day
becoming oppressive he cast it off, and sought solace in a change of
scene. He could always, or almost always, do this at a moment's notice.
It chanced, upon a certain occasion, when a little community of artists
were celebrating the sale of a great picture--the masterpiece of one of
their number--that word was sent to Paul to join their feast. He found
the large studio where several of them worked intermittently, highly
decorated; a table was spread in a manner to have awakened an appetite
even upon the palate of the surfeited; there were music and dancing, and
bacchanalian revels that went on and on from night to day and on to
night again. It was a veritable feast of lanterns, and not until the
last one had burned to the socket and the wine-vats were empty and the
studio strewn with unrecognizable debris and permeated with odors stale,
flat and unprofitable, did the revels cease. Paul came to dine; he
remained three days; he had not yet worn out his welcome, but he had
resolved, as was his wont at intervals, to withdraw from the world, and
so he returned to the Eyrie,--which was ever his initial step toward the
accomplishment of the longed-for end.

Not very many days later Paul received the breeziest of letters; it was
one of a series of racy rhapsodies that came to him bearing the Santa
Rosa postmark. They were such letters as a fellow might write to a
college chum