nce!" he rasped out, wrathfully.

"I don't care what you call it," I replied, undisturbed, "I am not
going to be worried by you. Anyway," I ended, "it is my opinion that
you could be very good company if you chose."

The proposition appeared to take his breath away--at least, he said
nothing more; and I finished my cigar in peace and tossed the stump
into a saucer.

"Now," said I, "what price do you set upon your birds, Mr. Halyard?"

"Ten thousand dollars," he snapped, with an evil smile.

"You will receive a certified check when the birds are delivered," I
said, quietly.

"You don't mean to say you agree to that outrageous bargain--and I
won't take a cent less, either--Good Lord!--haven't you any spirit
left?" he cried, half rising from his pile of shawls.

His piteous eagerness for a dispute sent me into laughter impossible
to control, and he eyed me, mouth open, animosity rising visibly.

Then he seized the wheels of his invalid chair and trundled away, too
mad to speak; and I strolled out into the parlor, still laughing.

The pretty nurse was there, sewing under a hanging lamp.

"If I am not indiscreet--" I began.

"Indiscretion is the better part of valor," said she, dropping her
head but raising her eyes.

So I sat down with a frivolous smile peculiar to the appreciated.

"Doubtless," said I, "you are hemming a 'kerchief."

"Doubtless I am not," she said; "this is a night-cap for Mr.
Halyard."

A mental vision of Halyard in a night-cap, very mad, nearly set me
laughing again.

"Like the King of Yvetot, he wears his crown in bed," I said,
flippantly.

"The King of Yvetot might have made that remark," she observed,
re-threading her needle.

It is unpleasant to be reproved. How large and red and hot a man's
ears feel.

To cool them, I strolled out to the porch; and, after a while, the
pretty nurse came out, too, and sat down in a chair not far away. She
probably regretted her lost opportunity to be flirted with.

"I have so little company--it is a great relief to see somebody from
the world," she said. "If you can be agreeable, I wish you would."

The idea that she had come out to see me was so agreeable that I
remained speechless until she said: "Do tell me what people are doing
in New York."

So I seated myself on the steps and talked about the portion of the
world inhabited by me, while she sat sewing in the dull light that
straggled out from the parlor windows.

She had a certain c