hey
rather looked down upon the new boarders who came in--tenderfeet,
people who didn't know about Bald Knob or the Glade or Hawkins's Pond,
people who weren't half so witty or comfy as the giants of those golden,
olden days when Mr. Cannon had ruled. Una and Mr. Schwirtz deigned to
accompany them on picnics, even grew interested in their new conceptions
of the presidential campaign and croquet and food, yet held rather
aloof, as became the _ancien regime_; took confidential walks together,
and in secret laughed enormously when the green generation gossiped
about them as though they were "interested in each other," as Mr. Starr
and Miss Vincent had been in the far-forgotten time. Una blushed a
little when she discovered that every one thought they were engaged, but
she laughed at the rumor, and she laughed again, a nervous young laugh,
as she repeated it to Mr. Schwirtz.

"Isn't it a shame the way people gossip! Silly billies," she said. "We
never talked that way about Mr. Starr and Miss Vincent--though in their
case we would have been justified."

"Yes, bet they _were_ engaged. Oh, say, did I tell you about the first
day I came here, and Starr took me aside, and says he--"

In their hour-long talks Mr. Schwirtz had not told much about himself,
though of his business he had talked often. But on an afternoon when
they took a book and a lunch and tramped off to a round-topped, grassy
hill, he finally confided in her, and her mild interest in him as an
amiable companion deepened to sympathy.

The book was The _People of the Abyss_, by Jack London, which Mamie
Magen had given to Una as an introduction to a knowledge of social
conditions. Una had planned to absorb it; to learn how the shockingly
poor live. Now she read the first four pages to Mr. Schwirtz. After
each page he said that he was interested. At the end of the fourth page,
when Una stopped for breath, he commented: "Fine writer, that fella
London. And they say he's quite a fella; been a sailor and a miner and
all kinds of things; ver' intimate friend of mine knows him quite
well--met him in 'Frisco--and he says he's been a sailor and all kinds
of things. But he's a socialist. Tell you, I ain't got much time for
these socialists. Course I'm kind of a socialist myself lots-a ways, but
these here fellas that go around making folks discontented--!
Agitators--! Don't suppose it's that way with this London--he must be
pretty well fixed, and so of course he's prob'ly