"I'll blue-pencil my own stuff," he said. "If you want to hear how it happened you'll listen to the literary part, too." "Go on, then," said Langdon, sullenly. "I will. . . . The sunlight fell softly upon the trees of the ancient wood; bosky depths cast velvety shadows----" "What is a bosky depth? What _is_ boskiness? By heaven, I've waited years to ask; and now's my chance? You tell me what 'bosky' is, or----" "Do you want to hear about that girl?" "Yes, but----" "Then you fill your face full of flapjack and shut up." Langdon bit rabidly at a flapjack and beat the earth with his heels. "The stream," continued Sayre, "purled." He coldly watched the literary effect upon Langdon, then went on: "Now, there's enough descriptive colour to give you a proper mental picture. If you had left me alone I'd have finished it ten minutes ago. The rest moves with accelerated rhythm. It begins with the cracking of a stick in the forest. Hark! A sharp crack is----" "Every bum novel begins that way." "Well, the real thing did, too! And it startled me. How did I know what it might have been? It might have been a bear----" "Or a cow." "You talk," said Sayre angrily, "like William Dean Howells! Haven't you _any_ romance in you?" "Not what _you_ call romance. Pass the flapjacks." Sayre passed them. "My attention," he said, "instantly became riveted upon the bushes. I strove to pierce them with a piercing glance. Suddenly----" "Sure! 'Suddenly' always comes next." "Suddenly the thicket stirred; the leaves were stealthily parted; and----" "A naked savage in full war paint----" "Naked nothing! A young girl in full war paint and a perfectly fitting gown stepped noiselessly out." "Out of what? you gink!" "The bushes, dammit! She held in her hand a curious contrivance which I could not absolutely identify. It might have been a hammock; it might have been a fish-net." "Perhaps it was a combination," suggested Langdon cheerfully. "Good idea; she to help you catch a trout; you to help her sit in the hammock; afterward----" Sayre, absorbed in retrospection, squatted beside the fire, a burnt flapjack suspended below his lips, which were slightly touched with a tenderly reminiscent smile. "What are you smirking about _now_?" demanded Langdon. "She was _such_ a pretty girl," mused Sayre, dreamily. "Did you sit in the hammock with her?" "No, I didn't. I'm not sure it was a hammock. I don't know what it was. She remained in sight only a moment." "Didn't you speak to her?" "No. . . . We just looked. She looked at me; I gazed at her. She was so unusually pretty, Curtis; and her grave, grey eyes seemed to meet mine and melt deep into me. Somehow----" "In plainer terms," suggested Langdon, "she gave you the eye. What?" "That's a peculiarly coarse observation." "Then tell it your own way." "I will. The sunlight fell softly upon the trees of the ancient wood----"