"No, I haven't!" he shouted in his mellow and sonorously musical bellow. "I have told you one hundred times that when I have anything to say I'll send for you. Now, permit me to inform you, for the hundred and first consecutive time, that I have nothing to say--which won't prevent you from coming back in an hour and standing in exactly the same ridiculous position you now occupy, and asking me exactly the same unmannerly questions, and taking the same impertinent snapshots at my house and my person!" He executed a ferocious facial contortion, clapped the monocle into his left eye, and squinted fiercely. "I'm getting tired of this!" he continued. "When I wake in the morning and look out of my window there are always anywhere from one to twenty reporters decorating my lawn! That young man over there is the worst and most persistent offender!"--scowling at a good-looking youth in white flannels, who immediately blushed distressingly. "Yes, you are, young man! I'm amazed that you have the decency to blush! Your insolent sheet, the Evening Star, refers to my Trust Company as a Green Mouse Trap and a _Mouse_leum. It also publishes preposterous pictures of myself and family. Dammit, sir, they even produce a photograph of Orlando, the family cat! You did it, I am told. Did you?" "I am trying to do what I can for my paper, Mr. Carr," said the young man. "The public is interested." Mr. Carr regarded him with peculiar hatred. "Come here," he said; "I _have_ got something to say to _you_." The young man cautiously left the ranks of his fellows and came up on the porch. Behind Mr. Carr, in the doorway, stood Drusilla and Flavilla. The young man tried not to see them; he pretended not to. But he flushed deeply. "I want to know," demanded Mr. Carr, "why the devil you are always around here blushing. You've been around here blushing for a month, and I want to know why you do it." The youth stood speechless, features afire to the tips of his glowing ears. "At first," continued Mr. Carr, mercilessly, "I had a vague hope that you might perhaps be blushing for shame at your profession; I heard that you were young at it, and I was inclined to be sorry for you. But I'm not sorry any more!" The young man remained crimson and dumb. "Confound it," resumed Mr. Carr, "I want to know why the deuce you come and blush all over my lawn. I won't stand it! I'll not allow anybody to come blushing around me----" Indignation choked him; he turned on his heel to enter the house and beheld Flavilla and Drusilla regarding him, wide-eyed. He went in, waving them away before him. "I've taught that young pup a lesson," he said with savage satisfaction. "I'll teach him to blush at me! I'll----" "But why," asked Drusilla, "are you so cruel to Mr. Yates? We like him." "Mr.--Mr. _Yates!_" repeated her father, astonished. "Is that his name? And who told _you?_" "He did," said Drusilla, innocently. "He--that infernal newspaper bantam----"