"It's a matter of definition," languidly spoke up an unmistakable Hindoo, crumbling his bread with exquisitely slender and small-boned fingers. "What shall we mean as _great?"_ "Shall we say _beauty?"_ softly queried a tragic-faced youth, sensitive and shrinking, crowned with an abominably trimmed head of long hair. Ernestine rose suddenly at her place, hands on table, leaning forward with a fine simulation of intensity. "They're off!" she cried. "They're off! Now we'll have the universe settled all over again for the thousandth time. Theodore"--to the youthful poet--"it's a poor start. Get into the running. Ride your father ion and your mother ion, and you'll finish three lengths ahead." A roar of laughter was her reward, and the poet blushed and receded into his sensitive shell. Ernestine turned on the black-bearded one: "Now, Aaron. He's not in form. You start it. You know how. Begin: 'As Bergson so well has said, with the utmost refinement of philosophic speech allied with the most comprehensive intellectual outlook that....'" More laughter roared down the table, drowning Ernestine's conclusion as well as the laughing retort of the black-bearded one. "Our philosophers won't have a chance to-night," Paula stole in an aside to Graham. "Philosophers?" he questioned back. "They didn't come with the Wickenberg crowd. Who and what are they? I'm all at sea." "They--" Paula hesitated. "They live here. They call themselves the jungle-birds. They have a camp in the woods a couple of miles away, where they never do anything except read and talk. I'll wager, right now, you'll find fifty of Dick's latest, uncatalogued books in their cabins. They have the run of the library, as well, and you'll see them drifting in and out, any time of the day or night, with their arms full of books--also, the latest magazines. Dick says they are responsible for his possessing the most exhaustive and up-to-date library on philosophy on the Pacific Coast. In a way, they sort of digest such things for him. It's great fun for Dick, and, besides, it saves him time. He's a dreadfully hard worker, you know." "I understand that they... that Dick takes care of them?" Graham asked, the while he pleasured in looking straight into the blue eyes that looked so straight into his.