Ray: "Don't call that much of a good party for Carl! Ring off, Gert; you got the wrong number that time, all right!" Gertie (flushing): "Oh, I _didn't_ mean----But we did have some good times. Oh, Carl, will you _ever_ forget the time you and I ran away when we were just babies?" Carl: "I'll never forget----" Mrs. Cowles: "I'll never forget that time! My lands! I thought I should die, I was so frightened." Carl: "You've forgiven me now, though, haven't you?" Mrs. Cowles: "My dear boy, of course I have!" (She wiped away a few tears with a gentlewoman handkerchief of lace and thin linen. Carl crossed the room and kissed her pale-veined, silvery old hand. Abashed, he subsided on the couch, and, trying to look as though he hadn't done it----) Carl: "Ohhhhh _say_, whatever did become of----Oh, I can't think of his name----Oh, _you_ know----I know his name well as I do my own, but it's slipped me, just for the moment----You know, he ran the billiard-parlor; the son of the----" (From Mrs. Cowles, a small, disapproving sound; from Ray, a grin of knowing naughtiness and a violent head-shake.) Gertie (gently): "Yes.... He--has left Joralemon.... Klemm, you mean." Carl (hastily, wondering what Eddie Klemm had done): "Oh, I see.... Have there been many changes in Joralemon?" Mrs. Cowles: "Do you write to your father and mother, Carl? You ought to." Carl: "Oh yes, I write to them quite often, now, though for a time I didn't." Mrs. Cowles: "I'm glad, my boy. It's pretty good, after all, to have home folks that you can depend on, isn't it? When I first went to Joralemon, I thought it was a little pokey, but now I'm older, and I've been there so long and all, that I'm almost afraid of New York, and I declare I do get real lonely for home sometimes. I'd be glad to see Dr. Rusk--Ben's father, I mean, the old doctor--driving by, though of course you know I lived in Minneapolis a great many years, and I do feel I ought to take advantage of the opportunities here, and I've thought quite seriously about taking up French again, it's so long since I've studied it----You ought to study it; you will find it cultivates the mind. And you must be sure to write often to your mother; there's nothing you can depend on like a mother's love, my boy." Ray: "Say, look here, Carl, I want to hear something about all this aviation. How does it feel to fly, anyway? I'd be scared to death; it's funny, I can't look off the top of a sky-scraper without feeling as though I wanted to jump. Gosh! I----" Gertie: "Now you just let Carl tell us when he gets ready, you big, bad brother! Carl wants to hear all about Home first.... All these years!... You were asking about the changes. There haven't been so very many. You know it's a little slow there. Oh, of course, I almost forgot; why, you haven't been in Joralemon since they built up what used to be Tubbs's pasture." Carl: "Not the old pasture by the lake? Well, well! Is that a fact! Why, gee! I used to snare gophers there!"