After dinner Silvia put Diogenes to bed and we sat out on the veranda. I was enjoying my evening smoke and the feel of the night wind in my face. Silvia had just finished telling me that merely to be away from the Polydores was Paradise enough for her, and that she didn't care very much about the woods, anyway--the lake was sufficient, when her optimism was rudely jolted by the shrill, shudder-sending song of the festive mosquito. She fled into the parlor. The landlady, who seemed to have a panacea for all ills, suggested that she might tack mosquito netting around the little balcony extending from our bedroom, and then she could sit there in comfort when the mosquitoes bothered. "That's what the last lady that had that room did," she said, "but when she left, she took the netting with her. We keep a supply in our little store." Silvia immediately sought the hotel store and bought a quantity of the netting and a goodly stock of the mosquito lotion. That night as I was drifting into slumber, Silvia remarked: "Only one of the things I heard and read about this place is true." "Which one?" I asked between winks. "That it was unfrequented. I have seen only three guests besides us so far. How do they make it pay?" "The hotel is evidently only a side issue," I replied. "To what?" "To the store. Think of the quantities of lotion and netting they must sell in the season, which, you must know, is in the fall. The hunting, the landlord tells me, is very good, and his hotel is quite popular in October and November." "I think we had better stay, Lucien. Mosquitoes don't poison you." "Even if they did," I declared, "as a choice between them and the Polydores I would say, 'Oh, Mosquito, where is thy sting?'" CHAPTER VI _A Flirt and a Woman-Hater_ The next morning I arose early and screened in the little birdhouse balcony. There was a large piece of netting left and Silvia converted it into a robe and headgear for the swaddling of Diogenes. "He looks like the Bride of Lammermoor," I declared, as he went forth in this regalia. "Well, that's preferable to looking like a pest-house patient, as he did yesterday." His first-aid costume didn't find favor with the landlady, as it would seem indicative to the newly arrived of the features of the place. However, before another stage-coming was due, Di had rent his garment sufficiently to make it useless is a "skeeter skirt." During the morning I enjoyed my solitary swim with the snakes. Diogenes played football with the croquet balls and bruised one of his toes, besides hitting the landlady's child in the eye. Silvia went for a walk which had been pictured in the advertisements. She speedily returned, her ardor dampened. "There are so many sticks and stones and rocks," she said in a discouraged tone, "that there was no pleasure in walking. I nearly sprained my ankle." "Well, the real sport we haven't tried yet," I said. "We'll get a boat and take Diogenes and go for a row on the lake."