"Well, you've et quite a lot," observed the visitor, looking into the bowl. "I certainly have; and will you thank Miss Barry for me, and tell her that I feel in these noticeable bones that I'm going to be up and around before very long?" "I'll tell her; and, oh, yes! Be you able to see folks?" King's eyes twinkled. "Well, I seem to have seen you without any danger." "Yes, but they didn't expect I was goin' to see you." There was a triumphant gleam in the speaker's eyes. "They told me to leave the jell." "You think for yourself, don't you, Blanche Aurora?" laughed King, settling down comfortably into his pillow. "I was bound I was goin' to see who it was could make Miss Linda sob, and _sob_, and besides, I wanted to see if the likeness was you that wasn't ever on her table before." Long after the visitor's departure King lay, a deep line between his brows, his perplexed thoughts accompanied by the constant sound as of rain in the rustling Balm-of-Gilead leaves above him. Linda in wild tears; Linda placing a photograph of himself beside that of her father and all following Fred Whitcomb's visit; there was something here to be inquired into. It was nearly noon when the laborers on the tennis court returned. King could hear their laughter as they approached the house; and shortly Whitcomb appeared beside the hammock, exasperatingly robust and gay, and wiping his moist brow. "How goes it?" he asked, grasping the rope and swinging the couch. "Stop that, or I'll murder you," growled King. "Sure thing. I forgot," said Whitcomb as he tightened his hold and brought the chrysalis to a standstill. "Madge Lindsay's a scream," he continued. "She's more fun than a barrel of monkeys. She knows every word of the Winter Garden and Follies songs for the last two years. I'll get her started so you can hear her one of these times." "Good Lord, deliver us!" uttered King devoutly. "Got a grouch, old man?" asked Whitcomb with a solicitous change of tone. "Did Blanche A-roarer, the human siren, blow her whistle too near you? We met her and she said she was bringing you jell." "She did, and it's safely stowed away under my sweater. What are you going to do next?" "Why, we thought we'd go into the water. We both took a Turkish bath out there on that Transgressor's Boulevard that we're trying to turn into a tennis court. It's high tide, and Madge says there's a beach down here where we can get a ducking when the water's high. That's the trouble with this place. It's so jagged and deep, only a submarine could go bathing here at low tide. Why?" added Whitcomb. "Did you want me for anything?" "No. What should I want you for? Get out." "All right. You'll be coming with us in a little while. So long. We're watching the time and we'll be on hand for dinner. Mackerel, the fair Luella told me. I can hardly wait."