ing launch lay idle for Sunday--to the Lake Meadow. This
was, as usual, surrounded by hundreds of campers of all classes. Bob was
known to all of them, of course; and he, in turn, had at least such a
nodding acquaintance with them that he could recognize any accretions to
their members. Near the lower end of the meadow, beneath a group of a
dozen noble firs, he caught sight of newcomers, and so strolled down
that way to see what they could be like.

He found pomp and circumstance. An enclosure had been roped off to
exclude the stock grazing at large in the meadow. Three tents had been
erected. They were made of a very light, shiny, expensive-looking
material with fringes along the walls, flies overhead and stretched in
front, sod cloths before the entrances. Three gaily painted wooden
rocking chairs, an equally gaudy hammock, a table flanked with benches,
a big cooking stove in the rear, canvas pockets hung from the trees--a
dozen and one other conveniences and luxuries bespoke the occupants as
well-to-do and determined to be comfortable. Two Japanese servants
dressed all in white moved silently and mysteriously in the background,
a final touch of incongruity in a rough country.

Before Bob had moved on, two men stepped into view from the interior of
one of the tents. They paced slowly to the gaudy rocking chairs and sat
down. In their progress they exhibited that peculiar, careless but
conscious deliberation of gait affected everywhere by those accustomed
to appearing in public. In their seating of themselves, their producing
of cigars, their puffings thereon, was the same studied ignoring of
observation; a manner which, it must be acknowledged, becomes second
nature to those forced to its adoption. It was a certain blown
impressiveness, a significance in the smallest movements, a
self-importance, in short, too large for the affairs of any private
citizen. It is to be seen in those who sit in high places, in clergy,
actors off the boards, magistrates, and people behind shop windows
demonstrating things to street crowds. Bob's first thought was of
amusement that this elaborate unconsciousness of his lone presence
should be worth while; his second a realization that his presence or the
presence of any one else had nothing to do with it. He wondered, as we
all wonder at times, whether these men acted any differently when alone
and in utter privacy, whether they brushed their teeth and bathed with
all the dignity of the p