which were, as always, lengthy, cheerful, and full of
interest in him and his work and thoughts.

During the previous fall, while under the new influence aroused in him
by his discovery that Helen Kendall was "the most wonderful girl in the
world," said discovery of course having been previously made for him by
the unfortunate Raymond, he had developed a habit of wandering off into
the woods or by the seashore to be alone and to seek inspiration. When
a young poet is in love, or fancies himself in love, inspiration is
usually to be found wherever sought, but even at that age and to one in
that condition solitude is a marked aid in the search. There were two
or three spots which had become Albert Speranza's favorites. One was a
high, wind-swept knoll, overlooking the bay, about a half mile from the
hotel, another was a secluded nook in the pine grove beside Carver's
Pond, a pretty little sheet of water on the Bayport boundary. On
pleasant Saturday afternoons or Sundays, when the poetic fit was on
him, Albert, with a half dozen pencils in his pocket, and a rhyming
dictionary and a scribbling pad in another, was wont to stroll towards
one or the other of these two retreats. There he would sprawl amid the
beachgrass or upon the pine-needles and dream and think and, perhaps,
ultimately write.

One fair Saturday in late June he was at the first of these respective
points. Lying prone on the beach grass at the top of the knoll and
peering idly out between its stems at the water shimmering in the summer
sun, he was endeavoring to find a subject for a poem which should deal
with love and war as requested by the editor of the Columbian Magazine.
"Give us something with a girl and a soldier in it," the editor had
written. Albert's mind was lazily drifting in search of the pleasing
combination.

The sun was warm, the breeze was light, the horizon was veiled with a
liquid haze. Albert's mind was veiled with a similar haze and the idea
he wanted would not come. He was losing his desire to find it and was,
in fact, dropping into a doze when aroused by a blood-curdling outburst
of barks and yelps and growls behind him, at his very heels. He came
out of his nap with a jump and, scrambling to a sitting position and
turning, he saw a small Boston bull-terrier standing within a yard of
his ankles and, apparently, trying to turn his brindled outside in, or
his inside out, with spiteful ferocity. Plainly the dog had come upon
him unexpec