cup.
Also, Mr. Vilas was smoking a cigarette with unshadowed pleasure;
his eye was bright, his expression care-free; and he was sitting
up in the hammock, swinging cheerfully, and singing the
"Marseillaise." Richard approached through the yard, coming from
the street without entering the house; and anxiety was manifest in
the glance he threw at the green-topped glass upon the table, and
in his greeting.

"Hail, gloom!" returned Mr. Vilas, cordially, and, observing the
anxious glance, he swiftly removed the untouched goblet from the
table to his own immediate possession. "Two simultaneous juleps
will enhance the higher welfare," he explained airily. "Sir, your
Mr. Varden was induced to place a somewhat larger order with us
than he protested to be your intention. Trusting you to exonerate
him from all so-and-so and that these few words, etcetera!" He
depleted the elder glass of its liquor, waved it in the air,
cried, "Health, host!" and set it upon the table. "I believe I do
not err in assuming my cup-bearer's name to be Varden, although he
himself, in his simple Americo-Africanism, is pleased to pluralize
it. Do I fret you, host?"

"Not in the least," said Richard, dropping upon a rustic bench,
and beginning to fan himself with his straw hat. "What's the use
of fretting about a boy who hasn't sense enough to fret about
himself?"

"`Boy?'" Mr. Vilas affected puzzlement. "Do I hear aright? Sir, do
you boy me? Bethink you, I am now the shell of five mint-juleps
plus, and am pot-valiant. And is this mere capacity itself to be
lightly _boyed_? Again, do I not wear a man's garment, a man's
garnitures? Heed your answer; for this serge, these flannels, and
these silks are yours, and though I may not fill them to the
utmost, I do to the longmost, precisely. I am the stature of a
man; had it not been for your razor I should wear the beard of a
man; therefore I'll not be boyed. What have you to say in
defence?"

"Hadn't you better let me get Joe to bring you something to eat?"
asked Richard.

"Eat?" Mr. Vilas disposed of the suggestion with mournful hauteur.
"There! For the once I forgive you. Let the subject never be
mentioned between us again. We will tactfully turn to a topic of
interest. My memories of last evening, at first hazy and somewhat
disconcerting, now merely amuse me. Following the pleasant Spanish
custom, I went a-serenading, but was kidnapped from beneath the
precious casement by--by a zealous arrival. Hos