"But I'm not in the wilds," said Marmaduke, "and haven't the slightest intention of ever leading the unnatural and frightful life you describe. So what you say doesn't apply to me." "Quite so," replied Oliver. "That wasn't the moral of my discourse. The habit of mind engendered in the wilds applies to me. Just as I could never think of Duck-Eyed Joe as George Wilkinson, so you, James Marmaduke Trevor, will live imperishably in my mind as Doggie. I was making a sort of apology, old chap, for my habit of mind." "If it is an apology----" said Marmaduke. Oliver, laughing, clapped him boisterously on the shoulder. "Oh, you solemn comic cuss!" He strode to a rose-bowl and knocked the ashes of his pipe into the water--Doggie trembled lest he might next squirt tobacco juice over the ivory curtains. "You don't give a fellow a chance. Look here, tell me, as man to man, what are you going to do with your life? I don't mean it in the high-brow sense of people who live in unsuccessful plays and garden cities, but in the ordinary common-sense way of the world. Here you are, young, strong, educated, intelligent----" "I'm not strong," said Doggie. "Oh, shucks! A month's exercise would make you as strong as a mule. Here you are--what the blazes are you going to do with yourself?" "I don't admit that you have any right to question me," said Doggie, lighting a cigarette. "Peggy has given it to me. We had a heart to heart talk this morning, I assure you. She called me a swaggering, hectoring barbarian. So I told her what I'd do. I said I'd come here and squeak like a little mouse and eat out of your hand. I also said I'd take you out with me to the Islands and give you a taste for fresh air and salt water and exercise. I'll teach you how to sail a schooner and how to go about barefoot and swab decks. It's a life for a man out there, I tell you. If you've nothing better to do than living here snug like a flea on a dog's back, until you get married, you'd better come." Doggie smiled pityingly, but said politely: "Your offer is very kind, Oliver; but I don't think that kind of life would suit me." "Oh yes it would," said Oliver. "It would make you healthy, wealthy--if you took a fancy to put some money into the pearl fishery--and wise. I'd show you the world, make a man of you, for Peggy's sake, and teach you how men talk to one another in a gale of wind." The door opened and Peddle appeared. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Oliver--but your man----" "Yes? What about him? Is he misbehaving himself? Kissing the maids?" "No, sir," said Peddle--"but none of them can get on with their work. He has drunk two quart jugs of beer and wants a third." "Well, give it to him." "I shouldn't like to see the man intoxicated, sir," said Peddle. "You couldn't. No one has or ever will." "He is also standing on his head, sir, in the middle of the kitchen table."