"Got to cover them up, Colonel," Mac said to me the last afternoon the fire was alight. I had arrived ahead of the others and had found him crooning over the smouldering logs, looking into the embers. "They've been mighty good to us all winter--never sulked, never backed out; start them going and give them a pat or two on their backs and away they went." He spoke as if the logs were alive. "Lots of comfort we've had out of them; going to have a lot more next year, too. I shall bury the embers of the last fire--perhaps this one, I can't tell--in its ashes and keep the whole till we start them up in the autumn. It will seem then like the same old fire. The flowers lie dead all winter but they bloom from the same old charred ember of a root. All the root needs is the sun and all the coals need is warmth. And the two never bloom in the same season--that's the best part of it." He had not once looked at me as he spoke; he knew me by my tread, and he knew my voice, but his eyes had not once turned my way, not even when I took the chair beside him. "And what are _you_ going to do, Mac, all summer? Got any plans?" "Got plenty of plans, but no money. Heard there was a man nibbling around my 'East River'--but you can't tell. Brown, the salesman, says it's as good as sold, but I've heard Brown say those things before. Exhibition closes this week. Guess the distinguished connoisseur, Mr. A. MacWhirter, will add that picture to his collection: that closet behind us is full of 'em." "Where would you like to go, old man?" "Oh, I don't know, Colonel. I'd like to try Holland once more and get some new skies--and boats." "Nothing on this side, Mac?" I was not probing for subjects for Mac's brush.