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It was very hot in the Park, and young Van Bibber, who has a good heart and a great deal more money than good-hearted people generally get, was cross and somnolent. He had told his groom to bring a horse he wanted to try to the Fifty-ninth Street entrance at ten o’clock, and the groom had not appeared. Hence Van Bibber’s crossness.

He waited as long as his dignity would allow, and then turned off into a by-lane end dropped on a bench and looked gloomily at the Lohengrin swans with the paddle-wheel attachment that circle around the lake. They struck him as the most idiotic inventions he had ever seen, and he pitied, with the pity of a man who contemplates crossing the ocean to be measured for his fall clothes, the people who could find delight in having some one paddle them around an artificial lake.

Two little girls from the East Side, with a lunch basket, and an older girl with her hair down her back, sat down on a bench beside him and gazed at the swans.

The place was becoming too popular, and Van Bibber decided to move on. But the bench on which he sat was in the shade, and the asphalt walk leading to the street was in the sun, and his cigarette was soothing, so he ignored the near presence of the three little girls, and remained where he was.

“I s’pose,” said one of the two little girls, in a high, public school voice, “there’s lots to see from those swan-boats that youse can’t see from the banks.”

“Oh, lots,” assented the girl with long hair.

“If you walked all round the lake, clear all the way round, you could see all there is to see,” said the third, “except what there’s in the middle where the island is.”

“I guess it’s mighty wild on that island,” suggested the youngest.

“Eddie Case he took a trip around the lake on a swan-boat the other day. He said that it was grand. He said youse could see fishes and ducks, and that it looked just as if there were snakes and things on the island.”

“What sort of things?” asked the other one, in a hushed voice.

“Well, wild things,” explained the elder, vaguely; “bears and animals like that, that grow in wild places.”

Van Bibber lit a fresh cigarette, and settled himself comfortably and unreservedly to listen.

“My, but I’d like to take a trip just once,” said the youngest, under her breath. Then she clasped her fingers together and looked up anxiously at the elder girl, who glanced at her with severe reproach.

“Why, Mame!” she said; “ain’t you ashamed! Ain’t you having a good time ’nuff without wishing for everything you set your eyes on?”

Van Bibber wondered at this–why humans should want to ride around on the swans in the first place, and why, if they had such a wild desire, they should not gratify it.

“Why, it costs more’n it costs to come all the way up town in an open car,” added the elder girl, as if in answer to his unspoken question.

The younger girl sighed at this, and nodded her head in submission, but blinked longingly at the big swans and the parti-colored awning and the red seats.

“I beg your pardon,” said Van Bibber, addressing himself uneasily to the eldest girl with long hair, “but if the little girl would like to go around in one of those things, and–and hasn’t brought the change with her, you know, I’m sure I should be very glad if she’d allow me to send her around.”

“Oh! will you?” exclaimed the little girl, with a jump, and so sharply and in such a shrill voice that Van Bibber shuddered. But the elder girl objected.

“I’m afraid maw wouldn’t like our taking money from any one we didn’t know,” she said with dignity; “but if you’re going anyway and want company–“