You know what I think? I think he was kind of practisin'. I think he
was practisin' how to bark at Mr. Parcher."

"No, no!" Mrs. Baxter laughed. "Who ever could think of such a thing but
you, Jane! You go to sleep and forget your nonsense!"

Nevertheless, Jane might almost have been gifted with clairvoyance, her
preposterous idea came so close to the actual fact, for at that very
moment William was barking. He was not barking directly at Mr. Parcher,
it is true, but within a short distance of him and all too well within
his hearing.

X

MR. PARCHER AND LOVE

Mr. Parcher, that unhappy gentleman, having been driven indoors from his
own porch, had attempted to read Plutarch's Lives in the library, but,
owing to the adjacency of the porch and the summer necessity for open
windows, his escape spared only his eyes and not his suffering ears. The
house was small, being but half of a double one, with small rooms, and
the "parlor," library, and dining-room all about equally exposed to the
porch which ran along the side of the house. Mr. Parcher had no refuge
except bed or the kitchen, and as he was troubled with chronic insomnia,
and the cook had callers in the kitchen, his case was desperate. Most
unfortunately, too, his reading-lamp, the only one in the house, was a
fixture near a window, and just beyond that window sat Miss Pratt and
William in sweet unconsciousness, while Miss Parcher entertained the
overflow (consisting of Mr. Johnnie Watson) at the other end of the
porch. Listening perforce to the conversation of the former couple
though "conversation" is far from the expression later used by Mr.
Parcher to describe what he heard--he found it impossible to sit
still in his chair. He jerked and twitched with continually increasing
restlessness; sometimes he gasped, and other times he moaned a little,
and there were times when he muttered huskily.

"Oh, cute-ums!" came the silvery voice of Miss Pratt from the likewise
silvery porch outside, underneath the summer moon. "Darlin' Flopit,
look! Ickle boy Baxter goin' make imitations of darlin' Flopit again.
See! Ickle boy Baxter puts head one side, then other side, just
like darlin' Flopit. Then barks just like darlin' Flopit! Ladies and
'entlemen, imitations of darlin' Flopit by ickle boy Baxter."

"Berp-werp! Berp-werp!" came the voice of William Sylvanus Baxter.

And in the library Plutarch's Lives moved convulsively, while with
writhing lips Mr. Parcher mutter