"And you live somewhere, of course--not in the tree up there with your
moon, but in the bungalow, I suppose."
"I live wherever I am; that's the fun of playing all the time," she
replied evasively. "_Poste restante_, the Little Dipper. How do you like
that?"
"But just now your true domicile is the bungalow?" he persisted.
"Oh, I've been stopping there for a few days, that's all. I haven't any
home--not really," she added as though she found her homelessness the
happiest of conditions. She snapped her fingers and recited:
"Wherever stars shine brightest, there my home shall be,
In the murmuring forest or by the sounding sea,
With overhead the green bough and underfoot the grass,
Where only dreams and butterflies ever dare to pass!"
"Is that Keats or Blake?" he ventured timidly.
"It's _me_, you goose! But it's only an imitation--why, Stevenson, of
course, and pretty punk as you ought to know. Gracious!"
She jumped down from the wall, on the side toward the bungalow, and
stared up at the tree she had embellished with her moon.
"The moon's gone out, and I've got to go _in_!"
"Please, before you go, when can I see you again?"
"Who knows!" she exclaimed unsympathetically; but she waited as though
pondering the matter.
"But I must see you again!" he persisted.
"Oh, I shouldn't say that it was wholly essential to your happiness--or
mine! I can't meet burglars--socially!"
"Burglars! But I'm not--" he cried protestingly.
She bent toward him with one hand extended pleadingly.
"Don't say it! Don't _say_ it! If you say you're _not_, you won't be any
fun any more!"
"Well, then we'll say I am--a terrible freebooter--a bold, bad pirate,"
he growled. "Now, may I come?"
She mused a moment, then struck her hands together.
"Come to the bungalow breakfast; that's a fine idea!"
"And may I bring Hood?" he asked, leaning half-way across the wall in his
anxiety to conclude the matter before she escaped. "He's my boss, you
understand, and I'm afraid I can't shake him."
"Certainly; bring Mr. Hood. Breakfast at eight."
"And your home--your address--is there in the bungalow?"
"I've told you where my home is, in a verse I made up specially; and my
address is care of the Little Dipper--there it is, up there in the sky,
all nice and silvery."
His gaze followed the pointing of her finger. The Little Dipper, as an
address for the use of mortals, struck him as rather remote. To his
surprise she advanced to the wall, rested her hands upon it, and peered
into his face.
"Isn't this perfectly killing?" she asked in a tone wholly different from
that in which she had carried on her share of the colloquy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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