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“Blueberry pie a la mode,” said Nick–“with strawberry ice cream.”

Inured as she was to the horrors of gastronomic miscegenation, the waitress–an old girl–recoiled at this.

“Say, I don’t think you’d like that. They don’t mix so very good. Why don’t you try the peach pie instead with the strawberry ice cream–if you want strawberry?” He looked so young and cool and fresh.

“Blueberry,” repeated Nick sternly, and looked her in the eye. The old waitress laughed a little and was surprised to find herself laughing. “‘S for you to say.” She brought him the monstrous mixture, and he devoured it to the last chromatic crumb.

“Nothing the matter with that,” he remarked as she passed, dish-laden.

She laughed again tolerantly, almost tenderly. “Good thing you’re young.” Her busy glance lingered a brief moment on his face. He sauntered out.

Now he took the path to the right of the shelter, crossed the road, struck the path again, came to a rustic bridge that humped high in the middle, spanning a cool green stream, willow-bordered. The cool green stream was an emerald chain that threaded its way in a complete circlet about the sylvan spot known as Wooded Island, relic of World’s Fair days.

The little island lay, like a thing under enchantment, silent, fragrant, golden, green, exquisite. Squirrels and blackbirds, rabbits and pigeons mingled in AEsopian accord. The air was warm and still, held by the encircling trees and shrubbery. There was not a soul to be seen. At the far north end the two Japanese model houses, survivors of the exposition, gleamed white among the trees.

Nick stood a moment. His eyelids closed, languorously. He stretched his arms out and up deliciously, bringing his stomach in and his chest out. He took off his cap and stuffed it into his pocket. He strolled across the thick cool nap of the grass, deserting the pebble path. At the west edge of the island a sign said: “No One Allowed in the Shrubbery.” Ignoring it, Nick parted the branches, stopped and crept, reached the bank that sloped down to the cool green stream, took off his coat, and lay relaxed upon the ground. Above him the tree branches made a pattern against the sky. Little ripples lipped the shore. Scampering velvet-footed things, feathered things, winged things made pleasant stir among the leaves. Nick slept.

He awoke in half an hour refreshed. He lay there, thinking of nothing–a charming gift. He found a stray peanut in his pocket and fed it to a friendly squirrel. His hand encountered the cool metal of his harmonica. He drew out the instrument, placed his coat, folded, under his head, crossed his knees, one leg swinging idly, and began to play rapturously. He was perfectly happy. He played Gimme Love, whose jazz measures are stolen from Mendelssohn’s Spring Song. He did not know this. The leaves rustled. He did not turn his head.

“Hello, Pan!” said a voice. A girl came down the slope and seated herself beside him. She was not smiling.

Nick removed the harmonica from his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hello who?”

“Hello, Pan.”

“Wrong number, lady,” Nick said, and again applied his lips to the mouth organ. The girl laughed then, throwing back her head. Her throat was long and slim and brown. She clasped her knees with her arms and looked at Nick amusedly. Nick thought she was a kind of homely little thing.

“Pan,” she explained, “was a pagan deity. He played pipes in the woods.”

“‘S all right with me,” Nick ventured, bewildered but amiable. He wished she’d go away. But she didn’t. She began to take off her shoes and stockings. She went down to the water’s edge, then, and paddled her feet. Nick sat up, outraged. “Say, you can’t do that.”

She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Oh, yes, I can. It’s so hot.” She wriggled her toes ecstatically.

The leaves rustled again, briskly, unmistakably this time. A heavy tread. A rough voice. “Say, looka here! Get out of there, you! What the—-” A policeman, red-faced, wroth. “You can’t do that! Get outa here!”