breakfast. He sure was a wonder, that kid! Two solid hours we chinned
there in the summerhouse, and it was almost by main strength I broke away
for a one o'clock dinner.

Then, just as I'd got settled comf'table on the veranda in the afternoon,
he shows up and begins again. There was nothin' diffident or backward
about Harold. He didn't have any doubts about whether he was welcome or
not, and his confidence about bein' able to entertain was amazin'.

It didn't do any good to throw out hints that perhaps he was bein' missed
at home, or to yawn and pretend you was sleepy. He was as persistent as a
mosquito singin' its evenin' song, and most as irritatin'. Twice I gets
up and pikes off, tryin' to shake him; but Harold trails right along too.
Maybe I'd yearned for conversation. Well, I was gettin' it.

At last I grows desp'rate, and in about two minutes more he would have
been led home to Mother with the request that she tether him on her side
of the fence, when I sees two of the lovers strollin' off to find a nook
that wa'n't preempted by the other pair. And all of a sudden I has this
rosy thought.

"Harold," says I, "it's most too bad, your wastin' all this flossy talk
on me, who can't appreciate its fine points as I should, when there go
some young people who might be tickled to death to have you join 'em.
Suppose you try cheerin' 'em up?"

"Why," says Harold, "I had not observed them before. Thank you for the
suggestion. I will join them at once."

Does he? Say, for the next couple of hours I had the time of my life
watchin' the maneuvers. First off I expect they must have thought him
kind of cute, same as I did; but it wa'n't long before they begun tryin'
to lose him. If they shifted positions once, they did a dozen times, from
the summerhouse to the rocks, then up to the veranda and back again, with
Harold Burbank taggin' right along and spoutin' his best. He tackles
first one pair, and then the other, until fin'lly they all retreats into
the house. Harold hesitates a little about walkin' through the door after
'em, until I waves my hand cordial.

"Make yourself right to home, Harold," says I. "Keep 'em cheered up."

Not until he drives the girls off to their rooms and has Bobbie and
Charles glarin' murderous at him, does he quit the sport and retire for
supper.

"Come over again this evenin'," says I. "You're makin' a hit."

Harold thanks me some more and says he will. He's a great one to keep his
word t