ey've been so afraid," said Frank, "as soon
as they've got enough vocabulary. We cannot know, until they tell us
how many of their conventions we have broken, how brutal we may have
seemed."

"And yet," Billy went on, "I should think they'd see that we wouldn't do
anything that wasn't for their own good. Well, just as soon as I can
put it over with them, I'm going to give them a long spiel on the
gentleman's code. I don't believe they'll ever be frightened of us
again. Hello!"

Lulu had tottered over to their group, supporting herself by the ledge
of rock. She pulled herself upright, balancing precariously. She put her
sharp little teeth close, parted her lips and produced:

"K-K-K-K-K-K-Kiss-S-S-S-S-S-S Me!"

The men burst into roars of laughter. Lulu looked from one face to the
other in perplexity. In perplexity, the other women looked from her to
them and at each other.

"Sounds like the Yale yell!" Pete commented.

"But what I can't understand," Billy said, reverting to his thesis, "is
that they don't realize instantly that we wouldn't hurt them for any
thing--that that's a thing a fellow couldn't do."

C.

Twilight on Angel Island.

The stars were beginning to shoot tiny white, five-pointed flames
through the purple sky. The fireflies were beginning to cut long arcs of
gold in the sooty dusk. The waves were coming up the low-tide beach with
a long roar and retreating with a faint hiss. Afterwards floated on the
air the music of the shingle, hundreds of pebbles pattering with liquid
footsteps down the sand. Peals of laughter, the continuous bass roar of
the men, an occasional uncertain soprano lilting of the women, came from
the group. The girls were reciting their lessons.

"Three little girls from school are we, Pert as schoolgirls well can be,
Filled to the brim with girlish glee, Three little maids from school!"
intoned Lulu, Chiquita, and Clara together.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
Silver bells and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row."

said Peachy.

"The hounds of spring are on winter's traces," began Julia. With no
effort of the memory, with a faultless enunciation, a natural feeling
for rhythm and apparently with comprehension, she, recited the Atalanta
chorus.

"That's enough for lessons," Honey demanded.

"Wait a moment!"

He rushed into the bushes and busied himself among the fire-flies. The
other four men, divining his