"Those Beaches--their kin are judges and senators and college Presidents, all over New England," she said. "This doctor must be the grandson of the ambassador, I fancy." "Honest? I thought they were just regular folks. Was I nice?" "Of course you were." "Did I--did I wash my paws and sit up and beg?" "No, you aren't a little dog. I'm that. You're the big mastiff that guards the house, while I run and yip." She was turned toward him, smiling. Her hand was beside him. He touched the back of it with his forefinger, as though he was afraid he might soil it. There seemed to be no reason, but he was trembling as he stammered, "I--I--I'm d-darn glad I didn't know they were anybody, or 'd have been as bad as a flivver driver the first time he tries a t-twelve-cylinder machine. G-gee your hand is little!" She took it back and inspected it. "I suppose it is. And pretty useless." "N-no, it isn't, but your shoes are. Why don't you wear boots when you're out like this?" A flicker of his earlier peremptoriness came into his voice. She resented it: "My shoes are perfectly sensible! I will not wear those horrible vegetarian uplift sacks on my feet!" "Your shoes may be all right for New York, but you're not going to New York for a while. You've simply got to see some of this country while you're out here--British Columbia and Alaska." "Would be nice, but I've had enough roughing----" "Chance to see the grandest mountains in the world, almost, and then you want to go back to tea and all that junk!" "Stop trying to bully me! You have been dictatorial ever since we started up----" "Have I? Didn't mean to be. Though I suppose I usually am bullying. At least I run things. There's two kinds of people; those that give orders, and those that naturally take them; and I belong to the first one, and----" "But my dear Milt, so do I, and really----" "And mostly I'd take them from you. But hang it, Seattle is just a day away, and you'll forget me. Wish I could kidnap you. Have half a mind to. Take you way up into the mountains, and when you got used to roughing it in sure-enough wilderness--say you'd helped me haul timber for a flume--then we'd be real pals. You have the stuff in you, but you still need toughening before----"