“Don’t you think they’ll overlook it?” Mr. Leonard managed to laugh this time. “I merely jumped and caught Dirk. Didn’t I play first base on the college team? I’ve caught harder and smaller balls than that. You’d have jumped, too, Bethie; don’t make so much of what I did. It was a good thing I was here, that’s all. What I’d like to know is what made that trapeze give way. It’s the best apparatus on the market. Indeed I don’t mean to make light of what has happened. Dirk had a frightful fall. I am deeply thankful, deeply thankful that I could catch him. Good old chap!” He put his arm over Dirk’s shoulder with his fine young face full of affection. Dirk looked up at him adoringly. “I tell you what, Bob Leonard,” he said, “I’d just as lief have you save my life as any one.” Then, in the nick of time to break up a nervous strain that threatened to be too much for a boys’ frolic, what Dirk had called “the eats” appeared. There were sandwiches and hot chocolate, cakes of many sorts and ice-cream in forms, each form an Indian, except one, and that was a lovely maiden in bisque and strawberry so disposed that one could easily imagine that it represented pink and white youthful prettiness. “Say, isn’t my mother just one! Goes and orders Indians for us and never lets on, because I told her what we were going to play to-day!” cried Dirk. “Here, this girl’s for you, Beth, and the rest don’t matter. The chocolate Indians are the nearest the real thing in looks.” Dirk passed the cream as he talked and urged his friends to help themselves freely to the cakes, which, to do them justice, they were perfectly ready to do. Beth could hardly eat; she chipped off the ends of her maiden’s hair and nibbled a cake, but she still saw Dirk’s body dashing through the air and her head swam. She wondered at the boys who, without exception, though some of them began to eat slowly, all rose superior to nerves and tucked away Mrs. Cortlandt’s refreshments rapidly. Even Mr. Leonard, who was a boy, too, of a larger size, proved as equal to this occasion as he had been to the danger. After the refreshments there never seems to be much for which to linger and Dirk’s Twelfth Night party broke up shortly. When the eating was over the sense of solemnity returned and the boys were ill at ease. Dirk was evidently glad when the last one had departed and he could go to his room to resume the garments of the white race. That evening at dinner Dirk was a hero. Natalie and Alys hung upon his every word. Natalie visibly glowed when he ate with hearty relish, apparently relieved by proof that he was thoroughly and boyishly alive. Alys smiled at every word Dirk spoke; she spoke to him softly, with the greatest affection, as though she feared to startle him if she used her ordinary tone. She told him that if he still wanted the camera which he thought better than his own, he might have it. She added that she was sorry she had not given it to him at once.