“I don't see how I'm going to stand it much longer, Barker,” he said. “I shall have to pop pretty soon or die, one of the two; and I'm afraid either one 'll kill me. Wasn't she lovely to-night? Honey in the comb, sugar in the gourd, _I_ say! I wonder what it is about popping, anyway, that makes it so hard, Barker? It's simply a matter of business, if you come to boil it down. You offer a fellow so many cattle, and let him take 'em or leave 'em. But if the fellow happens to have on a long, slim, olive-green dress of some colour, and holds her head like a whole floral tribute on a stem, and _you_ happen to be the cattle you're offering, you can't feel so independent about it, somehow. Well, what's the use? She's a daisy, if ever there was one. Ever notice what a peculiar blue her eyes are?” “Blue?” said Lemuel. “They're brown.” “Look here, old man,” said Berry compassionately, “do you think I've come down here to fool away my time talking about Miss Carver? We'll take some Saturday afternoon for that, when we haven't got anything else to do; but it's Miss Swan that has the floor at present. What were you two talking about over there, so long? I can't get along with Miss Carver worth a cent.” “I hardly know what we did talk about,” said Lemuel dreamily. “Well, I've got the same complaint, I couldn't tell you ten words that Madeline said--in thine absence let me call thee Madeline, sweet!--but I knew it was making an immortal spirit of me, right straight along, every time. The worst thing about an evening like this is, it don't seem to last any time at all. Why, when those girls began to put up their hands to hide their yawns, I felt like I was just starting in for a short call. I wish I could have had a good phonograph around. I'd put it on my sleepless pillow, and unwind its precious record all through the watches of the night.” He imitated the thin phantasmal squeak of the instrument in repeating a number of Miss Swan's characteristic phrases. “Yes, sir, a pocket phonograph is the thing I'm after.” “I don't see how you can talk the way you do,” said Lemuel, shuddering inwardly at Berry's audacious freedom, and yet finding a certain comfort in it. “That's just the way I felt myself at first. But you'll get over it as you go along. The nicest thing about their style of angel is that they're perfectly human, after all. You don't believe it now, of course, but you will.”