"Oh, I'm strong for Radville," he declared earnestly. "It's all to the merry ... I beg your pardon." I stared curiously to see him colour like a school-girl. "What for?" "My mistake, sir; I forgot myself again. I don't use slang." "Oh!" I commented, wondering. He was beginning to puzzle me. In the pause the air began to rock with the heavy clanging of the clock in the Methodist Church steeple. "That's noon," I said. "We'll have to cut along: dinner's ready." Duncan immediately replanted himself firmly upon the parapet. "I know it," he said with some indignation. Again bewildered, I hesitated, but eventually advanced: "Our ways run together, Mr. Duncan, as far as the Bigelow House. My name is Littlejohn--Homer Littlejohn." He rose again to take my hand and assured me he was glad to make my acquaintance. "But," he added morosely, "I'll be damned if I go back to that hotel before dinner's over.... Great Scott! I forgot again. I don't swear!" "Have you any other unnatural accomplishments?" I inquired, chuckling. "I'm so full of 'em I can hardly stick," he assented gloomily. "I don't drink or smoke or swear or play pool or cards, and on Sundays I go to church." I laughed outright. "You've come to the right place for such exemplary virtues to be fully appreciated, Mr. Duncan." "That's all right," he said with a return of his indignation, "but it wasn't in the bargain that I should starve to death. Do you realise, Mr. Littlejohn," he continued, warming, "that you behold in me a young man in the prime of health actually on the point of wasting visibly away to a shadow of my former hardy self? It's a fact: I am. For the past two days I've had nothing to eat except railway sandwiches and coffee and the kind of fodder they pitchfork you at the Bigelow House. And I came here with a mind coloured with rosy anticipations of real old-fashioned country cooking. It's an outrage!" "Look here," said I: "why not come home with me for dinner? I'll be glad to have you, and Miss Carpenter won't mind your coming, I'm sure." He got up with alacrity. "Those are the first human words I've heard in Radville, sir! I accept with joy and gratitude. Come--lead me to it!" Now, Miss Carpenter doesn't like her meals delayed; so I would have been inclined to hasten this Mr. Duncan; but he saved me the trouble. "Miss Carpenter?" he asked without warning, as we hurried up Main Street. "My landlady, Mr. Duncan." "She takes boarders? An old maid?" he persisted eagerly. "An elderly spinster; boarders are her distraction as well as a source of income." "Do you think she'd take me in, Mr. Littlejohn?" "I'm sure of it. There's a vacant room ..." "Does she talk?" "Moderately." "Not a regular walking newspaper--no?" "Not exactly--" "Then I'm afraid it's no use," he sighed. I glanced up at his face, but it was inscrutable. "You--you want a landlady who talks?" I gasped, incredulous. "It's one of the rules," he said, again obscurely.