One thing was plain: there was something which men and women did, which they were all in a conspiracy to keep you from knowing that they did. It was a dark corner of life, mysterious and rather hateful. In the beginning, Bunny was loyal to his father, not trying to find out what his father didn’t want him to know. But this could not continue indefinitely, for the mind automatically seeks understanding. It was not merely that the birds and the chickens and the dogs in the street gave you hints; it was not merely that every street-boy knew, and was eager to explain; it was that the stupid grown-ups themselves persisted in saying things which you couldn’t help getting. It was Aunt Emma’s fixed conviction that every lady was after Dad; “setting her cap at him,” or “making sheep’s eyes at him”—she had many such phrases. And Dad always showed a queer embarrassment whenever he had been the least bit polite to any lady; he seemed to be concerned lest Bunny should share Aunt Emma’s suspicions. But the truth was, Bunny was irritated by his aunt, and learned to evade her questions, and not tell what Dad had said to the nice lady in the hotel at Lobos River, and whether or not the lady had had dinner with them. These worldly arts Bunny acquired, but all the time he was in secret revolt. Why couldn’t people talk plainly? Why did they have to be pretending, and whispering, and making you uncomfortable? II Within a week after bringing in Ross-Bankside No. 1, Dad had a new derrick under way on the lease, and in another week he had it rigged up, and the old string of tools was on its way into the earth again. Also he had two new derricks under way, and two new strings in process of delivery. There would be four wells, standing on the four corners of a diamond-shaped figure, three hundred feet on the side. It was necessary to call house-movers, and take the Bankside homestead to another lot; but that didn’t trouble Mr. Bankside, who had already moved himself to an ocean-front palace near Dad, and bought himself a whole outfit of furniture, and a big new limousine, also a “sport-car,” in which to drive himself to the country club to play golf every afternoon. The Bankside family was accustoming itself to the presence of a butler, and Mrs. Bankside had been proposed at the most exclusive of the ladies’ clubs. Efficiency was the watch-word out here in the West, and when you decided to change your social status, you put the job right through.