"Oho!" said Donald, slowly and suspiciously. "So this is where you were driving around to?" Controlling an immense complication of sensations, Charles said coldly: "You mean you're going to--the Flowers', too?" "You've guessed it!" retorted the engineer, with a slight touch of consciousness. And he added, assuming an indifferent air: "Just got to stop by and leave a book Miss Flower lent me." And then, for the first time, Charles noticed the volume in a gaudy wrapper protruding beneath Donald's sturdy arm. The coincidence was remarkable, to say the least of it. It was also exceedingly annoying. "Time, too," quoth the primitive male. "I've had it since before I went to Wyoming." On Angela's sidewalk, the two young men stood gazing hard at each other. Whatever the argument in the case, it was surely Charles's higher nature that spoke at last, icily but firmly:-- "I am going here to return a book, and also to pay a call--on the family. If you wish, I will return your book for you." "Couldn't think of troubling you, Charlie, old top." "As you like, of course--" "But as I'm going in, anyway, why need you stop at all? Glad to take charge of your book for you. Save you a little hack-fare." To this, Charles disdained reply. So the two members of the coterie, with their books to return under their arms, stepped up the bricked walkway side by side. Charles rang the Flowers' loud little bell. Having done so, he turned on the shabby verandah, with the intention of looking Donald hostilely up and down. But he found that Donald was already looking him up and down, in the most hostile manner conceivable. Then the youth's dullness, his grotesque conception of a male rivalry here, his impervious blind asininity,--all this acting upon the original concern about the Call, produced a sudden infuriation. Speech flowed from Charles:-- "Of all the laughing jackasses that ever broke loose from a zoo, I do think you take the cake, Manford. How you keep from falling off bridges, or butting out the pan where your brain ought to be on stone-copings, passes all understanding. If I didn't have you to look at, I wouldn't believe it possible that an ordinary well-meaning chucklehead could deteriorate so horribly, just in a week or two." Donald seemed slightly nonplussed by this attack. All that he could muster in reply was some very poor childish stuff, introduced by shakings of his head and "significant" tappings of his forehead. "So that's why they sent him around here in a closed carriage--oho! Old Doc Flower's an alienist--forgot that! H'm! Funny how it runs in the family. First old Blenso, now poor Charlie-boy ..." Then a servant opened the door, and relieved the high tension instantly by saying, in reply to two simultaneous questions, that Miss Flower was out.