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“Dominie, who’s the newcomer?”

“That,” said I, “is Barbran.”

“Barbran,” he repeated with a rising inflection. “It sounds like a breakfast food.”

“As she pronounces it, it sounds like a strain of music,” said I.

“What’s the rest of her name?”

“I am not officially authorized to communicate that.”

“Are you officially authorized to present your friends to her?”

“On what do you base your claim to acquaintanceship, my boy?” I asked austerely.

“Oh, claim! Well, you see, a couple of days ago, she was on the cross-town car; and I–well, I just happened to notice her, you know. That’s all.”

“Yet I am informed on good and sufficient authority that her appearance is not such as to commend her, visually, if I may so express myself, to the discriminating eye.”

“Who’s the fool–” began Mr. Stacey hotly.

“Tut-tut, my young friend,” said I. “Certain ladies whom we both esteem can and will prove, to the satisfaction of the fair-minded, that none of the young person’s features is exactly what it should be or precisely where it ought to be. Nevertheless, the net result is surprising and even gratifying.”

“She’s a peach!” asseverated my companion.

“Substantially what I was remarking. As for your other hint, you need no introduction to Barbran. Nobody does.”

“What?” Phil Stacey’s plain face became ugly; a hostile light glittered in his eyes. “What do you mean by that?” he growled.

“Simply that she’s about to become a local institution. She’s plotting against the peace and security of Our Square, to the extent of starting a coffee-house at Number 26.”

“No!” cried Phil joyously. “Good news!”

“As a fad. She’s a budding millionairess from the West.”

“No!” growled Phil, his face falling.

“Bad news; eh? It occurred to me that she might want some decorations, and that you might be the one to do them.” In his leisure hours, my young friend, who is an expert accountant by trade (the term “expert” appears to be rather an empty compliment, since his stipend is only twenty-five dollars a week), perpetrates impressionistic decorations and scenery for such minor theaters as will endure them.

“You’re a grand old man, Dominie!” said he. “Let’s go.”

We went. We found Barbran. We conversed. Half an hour later when I left them–without any strenuous protests on the part of either–they were deeply engrossed in a mutual discussion upon decorations, religion, the high cost of living, free verse, two-cent transfers, Charley Chaplin, aviation, ouija, and other equally safe topics. Did I say safe? Dangerous is what I mean. For when a youth who is as homely as young Phil Stacey and in that particular style of homeliness, and a girl who is as far from homely as Barbran begin, at first sight, to explore each other’s opinions, they are venturing into a dim and haunted region, lighted by will-o’-the-wisps and beset with perils and pitfalls. Usually they smile as they go. Phil was smiling as I left them. So was Barbran. I may have smiled myself.

Anything but a smile was on Phil Stacey’s normally cheerful face when, some three days thereafter, he came to my rooms.

“Dominie,” said he, “I want to tap your library. Have you got any of the works of Harvey Wheelwright?”

“God forbid!” said I.

Phil looked surprised. “Is it as bad as that? I didn’t suppose there was anything wrong with the stuff.”

“Don’t you imperil your decent young soul with it,” I advised earnestly. “It reeks of poisonous piety. The world he paints is so full of nauseating virtues that any self-respecting man would rather live in hell. His characters all talk like a Sunday-school picnic out of the Rollo books. No such people ever lived or ever could live, because a righteously enraged populace would have killed ’em in early childhood. He’s the smuggest fraud and best seller in the United States. Wheelwright? The crudest, shrewdest, most preposterous panderer to weak-minded–“

“Whew! Help! I didn’t know what I was starting,” protested my visitor. “As a literary critic you’re some Big Bertha, Dominie. I begin to suspect that you don’t care an awful lot about Mr. Wheelwright’s style of composition. Just the same, I’ve got to read him. All of him. Do you think I’ll find his stuff in the Penny Circulator?”