"Please to tell me how. Do you mean I could induce Phebe to accept the place of head cook at the hotel?" "Heaven forbid. No, bat, of course not." "Why bat?" "You are so blind, just like most conceited young men who might have homes of their own if they chose." "Please, Miss Ri, don't be severe. You haven't the right idea at all. Don't you know it is my lack of conceit which prevents my harboring the belief that I could induce anyone to help me to make a home?" "I don't know anything of the kind. I know it is your selfish love of ease and your desire to shirk responsibility." "Listen to her, Linda. She will drive me to asking the first girl I meet if she will marry me. You might do it, by the way, and then we might take our revenge by luring Phebe away from her. Of course, Phebe would follow you. I wonder I never thought of that before." "You are a flippant, senseless trifler," cried Miss Ri with more heat than would appear necessary. "I won't have you talking so of serious subjects." "So it is a serious subject to your mind?" Berkley laughed gleefully. But Miss Ri maintained a dignified silence during which Berkley made little asides to Linda till finally Miss Ri said placidly, "I told Linda not long ago that I never got mad with fools, and," she added with a gleam of fun in her eyes, "I'm not going to begin to do it now." "You have the best of me as usual, Miss Ri," laughed Berkley, "although I might get back at you, if one good turn deserves another. By the way, Linda, did you ever hear the way old Aaron Hopkins interprets that?" "No, I believe not." "Someone sent him a barrel of apples last year, and he told me the other day that he expected the same person would send another this year. 'He sent 'em last year,' said the old fellow, 'and you know 'one good turn deserves another.' He is a rare old bird, is Aaron." "He certainly is," returned Linda. "I think it is too funny that he named his boat the _Mary haha_. He told me he thought that _Minnehaha_ was a nice name for young folks to use, 'but for an old fellow like me it ain't dignified,' he said." "Tell Berk what he said to your brother when he came back from college," urged Miss Ri. "Oh, yes, that was funny, too. You know Mart had been away for three years, and he met old Aaron down by the creek one day. I doubt if Aaron has ever been further than Sandbridge in his life. He greeted Mart like one long lost. 'Well, well,' he said, 'so you've got back. Been away a right smart of a time, haven't you?' 'Three years,' Mart told him. 'Where ye been?' 'To New Jersey.' 'That's right fur, ain't it?' 'Some distance.' 'Beyand Pennsylvany, I reckon. Well, well, how on airth could you stand it?' 'Why, it's a pretty good place, why shouldn't I stand it, Aaron?' said Mart. 'But it's so durned fur from the creek,' replied Aaron." "Pretty good," cried Berkley. "A true Eastern shoreman is Aaron, wants nothing better than his boat and the creek. Good for him."