Until eleven Dick received his managers and foremen. But not for a quarter of an hour after that did he get rid of his show manager, Mr. Pitts, with the tentative make-up of the catalogue for the first annual stock-sale on the ranch. By that time Mr. Bonbright was on hand with his sheaf of telegrams, and the lunch-hour was at hand ere they were cleaned up. For the first time alone since he had seen the tally-ho off, Dick stepped out on his sleeping porch to the row of barometers and thermometers on the wall. But he had come to consult, not them, but the girl's face that laughed from the round wooden frame beneath them. "Paula, Paula," he said aloud, "are you surprising yourself and me after all these years? Are you turning madcap at sober middle age?" He put on leggings and spurs to be ready for riding after lunch, and what his thoughts had been while buckling on the gear he epitomized to the girl in the frame. "Play the game," he muttered. And then, after a pause, as he turned to go: "A free field and no favor ... and no favor." * * * * * "Really, if I don't go soon, I'll have to become a pensioner and join the philosophers of the madroño grove," Graham said laughingly to Dick. It was the time of cocktail assembling, and Paula, in addition to Graham, was the only one of the driving party as yet to put in an appearance. "If all the philosophers together would just make one book!" Dick demurred. "Good Lord, man, you've just got to complete your book here. I got you started and I've got to see you through with it." Paula's encouragement to Graham to stay on--mere stereotyped, uninterested phrases--was music to Dick. His heart leapt. After all, might he not be entirely mistaken? For two such mature, wise, middle-aged individuals as Paula and Graham any such foolishness was preposterous and unthinkable. They were not young things with their hearts on their sleeves. "To the book!" he toasted. He turned to Paula. "A good cocktail," he praised. "Paul, you excel yourself, and you fail to teach Oh Joy the art. His never quite touch yours.--Yes, another, please." CHAPTER XXI