In passing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home. Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town institution: to it Radville pointed with pride.... He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it--as water runs beneath ice--more, I think, a matter of intonation and significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which, coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; entitled to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one.... There was a certain night, by way of illustration--a bitter night, along toward the first of January--when trade was dull, as it always is after Christmas, and there was nobody in the store save Nat and Tracey. Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an added trace of scarlet--a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which eventually excited Duncan's attention. He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?" Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I--I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I was thinkin', I guess." "Anything gone wrong?" "Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of cheer. Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?" "No-o, but..." "Well?" "Say, Mr. Duncan--" Tracey's confusion became terrific. "Say on, Mr. Tanner." The interjection diverted Tracey's train of thought to an inconsiderable siding. "I only called you Mr. Duncan," he said, aggrieved, "'cause you're my boss." "That's a poor excuse, Tracey. You call Mr. Graham 'Sam,' and he's likewise your boss." "I know. But it's diff'runt."