However, he was never met engaged in this lucrative way of business,--he simply turned his back on everybody, Morgana Royal included, and so far as "society" was concerned, just disappeared. In the "hut of the dying" on that lonely hill-slope in California he was happy, feeling a relief from infinite boredom, and thankful to be alone. He had much to think about and much to do--inhabited places and the movement of people were to him tedious and fatiguing, and he decided that nature,--wild nature in a solitary and savage aspect,--would suit his speculative and creative tendencies best. Yet, like all human beings, he had his odd, almost child-like moods, inexplicable even to himself--moods illogical, almost pettish, and wholly incongruous with his own accepted principles of reasoning. For instance, he maintained that women had neither attraction nor interest for him--yet he found himself singularly displeased when after two or three days of utter solitude, and when he was rather eagerly expecting Manella to arrive with the new milk which was his staple food, a lanky, red-haired ugly boy appeared instead of her--a boy who slouched along, swinging the milk pail in one hand and clutching a half-munched slice of pine-apple in the other. "Hello--o!" called this individual. "Not dead yet?" For answer Seaton strode forward and taking the milk-pail from him gripped him by the dirty cotton shirt and gave him a brief but severe shaking. "No,--not dead yet!" he said--"You insolent young monkey! Who are you?" The boy wriggled in his captor's clutch, and tried to squirm himself out of it. "I'm--I'm Jake--they calls me Irish Jake"--he gasped--"O Blessed Mary!--my breath! I clean the knives at the Plaza--" "I'll clean knives for you presently!" remarked Seaton, with a threatening gesture--"Yes, Irish Jake, I will! Who sent you here?" "SHE did--oh, Mary mother!" and the youth gave a further wriggle--"Miss Soriso--the girl they call Manella. She told me to say she's too busy to come herself." Seaton let go the handful of shirt he had held.