er that there was a long silence... silence broken only by that
softly sibilant detonation which belongs most properly to the month of
June, but confines itself to no season... to a long, long silence
born of and blessed by the gods... until one Percival Sheridan, coming
stealthily home from a late debauch at Humphrey's drug store, and
mounting the steps in the tennis sneakers which were his invariable wear
on dry and non-state occasions, bumped into the invisible and unhearing
couple.

"Say, there--" gasped the startled youth, backing away.

Betty gave an affrighted cry--it was a long swift journey down from
where she had just been. Her right hand, reaching drowningly out, fell
upon a familiar shoulder.

"It's Pudge!" she cried. "Pudge"--shaking him--"snooping around,
listening and trying to spy----"

"You stop that--it ain't so!" protested the outraged Pudge, his
utterance throttled down somewhat by the chocolate cream in his mouth.

"Spying on people! And, besides, you've been stuffing yourself with
candy again! You're ruining your stomach with that sticky sweet
stuff--you're headed straight for a candy-fiend's grave. Now, you go
upstairs and to bed!"

She jerked him toward the door, opened it, and as he was thrust through
the door Pudge felt something, something warm, press impulsively against
a cheek. Not until the door had closed upon him did he realize what
Betty had done to him. He stood dazed for a moment--unbalanced between
impulses. Then the sturdy maleness of fourteen rewon its dominance.

"Guess I know what they was doing, all right--aw, wouldn't it make you
sick!" And, in disgust which another chocolate cream alleviated hardly
at all, he mounted to his bed.

Outside there was again silence... faintly disturbed only by that softly
sibilant, almost muted percussion which recalls inevitably the month of
June....

THE END

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