"Good morning, mister," I said, plumping myself down upon the mound he had made, and he, being much more impressionable than you would suppose from his Uranian appearance, replied: "I swan, I like your cheek." "It's a pleasant day," I said, because one is always expected to announce some result of observation of the atmosphere. It shows at once whether or not one is an idiot. "I call it pretty danged hot," he returned, intelligently. "Then why don't you get out of the sun?" I suggested, more to keep the conversation fluid than because I cared a bit. "I'm a-goin' to," he answered, "just as soon as that goll-darned wagon comes." (A "goll-darned" wagon is, I think, a wagon without springs.) "What are you going to do then?" I asked, beginning to fear I should be left alone again after all my trouble. "Goin' home to dinner," he replied, and I at once said I would go with him.--You see, I had placed a little too much reliance on the egg. "I dunno about that, but I guess it will be all right," he urged, hospitably, and presently the goll-darned wagon arrived with another man, who turned out to be the first one's son and who looked as though he bit. Together the two threw all the herbage into the wagon till it was heaped far above their heads. "How am I ever to get up?" I asked, for I had no idea of walking any farther, and I could see the man's white house ever so far away. "Who said you was goin' to get up at all?" inquired the biter, disagreeably, but the other answered for me. "I said it, that's who, you consarned jay," he announced, reprovingly. When I had made them both climb up first and give me each a hand, I had no difficulty at all in mounting, but I was very careful not to thank the Jay, which seemed to make him more morose than ever. Then they slid down again, and off we started. Once when we came to some lovely blue flowers growing in water near the roadside I told the Jay to stop and wade in and pick them for me. "I'll be dogged if I do," he answered; so I said: "I don't know what being 'dogged' means, but if it is a reward for being nice and kind and polite, I hope you will be." Whereupon he bit at me once and waded in, while the other man, whose name, it seems, was Pop, sat down upon a stone and laughed. "Gosh! If this don't beat the cats," he said, slapping his knee, which was his way of making himself laugh harder. I put the flowers in my hair and in my belt and wherever I could stick them. But there was still a lot left over, and whenever we met people I threw them some, which appeared to please Pop, but made the Jay still more bite-y. Presently we came to a very narrow place and there, as luck would have it, we met an automobile.--Thank goodness, I need not explain automobile.--And who should be at the lever all alone but--the Astorian.