“Well, anyhow—” began Oliver lamely—“anyhow, I’ve explained and it doesn’t seem to have done a particle of good.” “Are you coming to see me?” “Certainly. If you want me to.” “Just as if there were no such person as Dr. Lansing?” “He isn’t easy to overlook, you know.” “I dare say if I were to ask him to overlook you, Oliver, he would do it for my sake—with pleasure.” “Ouch!” “When are you coming to see me?” “This evening,” said he promptly. “Unless you have a previous engagement,” he hurriedly qualified in justice to his good intentions. Jane smiled. “Doctor Lansing has quite an extensive practice,” she remarked dryly. “He can’t devote every evening to me, you know.” And so June drew toward an end with Jane and Oliver back on the old footing—not quite the same as before, owing to the latter’s secret conviction that he was playing hob with the doctor’s peace of mind, although that young gentleman failed surprisingly to reveal any signs of an inward disturbance. On the contrary, he didn’t seem to mind Oliver at all—an attitude that was not without its irritations. The “committee of three,” satisfied that he was safe for the time being, adopted the welcome policy of letting Oliver alone. Joseph Sikes was so vehemently concerned over the Eighteenth Amendment that he had little time for anything else—not, he insisted, because he was a drinking man or that he couldn’t get along without it, but because he had for once abandoned his own party and had weakly helped to elect men to a legislature that had betrayed the state into the hands of the “sissies.” He invariably spoke of the “dry” advocates as “sissies.” Oliver’s otherwise agreeable and whilom stay in Rumley was marred by his father’s increasing despondency and irritation over the fact that he not only was out of a job but apparently was making no effort to obtain one. There were times when the old man’s scolding became unbearable, and but for the pleadings of Serepta Grimes and the counsel of Mr. Sage, Oliver would have packed his bags and departed. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Oliver,” begged Serepta. “He’s cranky, that’s all. He don’t mean what he says. It would break his heart if you were to get mad and go off and leave him.” “But I can’t stand being called a loafer, and a good-for-nothing, and a lazy hound, and—” “You must overlook it, Oliver. He’s old and he has worried so terribly over what that gypsy said—” “All right—all right, Aunt Serepta,” he would say, patiently. “I’ll put up with it. I know he’s fond of me. I wouldn’t hurt him for the world. But sometimes it gets on my nerves so I have an awful time keeping my temper. How would you like to be called a long-legged sponge?” He grinned and so did she. “I think I’d like it,” chuckled dumpy little Serepta. “It would be stretchin’ something more than the imagination to give me a pair of long legs, my boy.”