"It grew to be so; but I hadn't the heart to stop it, even if I could have done so, so I put up a hedge to hide them from view and soften the sound of their voices; but it didn't work very long. They didn't seem to appreciate my motive, and it so happened that the hedge which I put up with the most innocent of intentions was a Japanese quince that blossoms out in thorns half an inch long, to an extent which suggests the fretful porcupine. These, for some reason or other, excited the animosity of my twenty young friends on the wall, and at the end of the season there were not two consecutive feet of the hedge that had not been hacked and cut to pieces by my indignant but uninvited guests." "What impudence!" cried the Poet. "Only the ardor of youth," observed the Idiot, calmly. "Put yourself in the same place. Suppose that you, just as you were about to declare your undying love for the girl of your choice, and while gently stealing your arm about her waist, were to have the back of your hand ripped off by a brutal hedge?" "I see," laughed the Poet. "I dare say I should be indignant." "They were properly so," said the Idiot, "properly so; and neither Mrs. Idiot nor I really blamed them." [Illustration: "'HOLDING UP A GREAT OSAGE ORANGE'"] "We let the matter rest, and made no complaint," he continued. "Time went on, and the courters became a trifle more assertive. One of them came into the house one evening and demanded to know what I meant by assaulting him and his lady friend, holding up a great Osage orange which he alleged to have been the murderous weapon I had used; and I really had to apologize, for I was guilty. It happened that while walking about my small preserves I had picked up this orange, which had fallen onto my lawn from a tree on Jimpsonberry's place, and had unthinkingly tried to see how far I could throw it. It went just over the hedge, and had unceremoniously knocked Strephon's hat into the middle of next week and frightened Phyllis into hysterics. I was placed on the defensive, but for the life of me I couldn't help laughing, with the result that Strephon stalked angrily away, alleging that I should hear from him further in the matter." "And did you?" asked the Poet. "No," said the Idiot, "I never did; but the incident rather soured me towards the people who seemed to regard my stone wall as their property. I even came to feel like purchasing a gatling-gun and loading it with Osage oranges for the purpose of repelling them, but even under this provocation I still continued to ignore the matter." "You are too easy-going," suggested the Poet. "I was," said the Idiot, "until they began to use the sidewalk that runs parallel with the wall as a tablet upon which to inscribe in letters of flame their undying affection. One Sunday morning, as Mrs. Idiot and I started for church, we were horrified to find our flagstones scribbled all over with poetry, done in chalk, after the order of