"Brooklyn was a quiet tree-shaded town," he continued thoughtfully, "unvexed by dreams of traffic; Flatbush an old Dutch village buried in the scented bloom of lilac, locust, and syringa, asleep under its ancient gables, hip-roofs, and spreading trees. Bath, Utrecht, Canarsie, Gravesend were little more than cross-road taverns dreaming in the sun; and that vile and noise-cursed island beyond the Narrows was a stretch of unpolluted beauty in an untainted sea--nothing but whitest sand and dunes and fragrant bayberry and a blaze of wild flowers. Why"--and he turned impatiently to the girl beside him--"why, I have seen the wild geese settle in Sheepshead Bay, and the wild duck circling over it; and I am not very aged. Think of it! Think of what this was but a few years ago, and think of what 'progress' has done to lay it waste! What will it be to-morrow?" "Oh--oh!" she protested, laughing; "I did not suppose you were that kind of a Jeremiah!" "Well, I am. I see no progress in prostrate forests, in soft-coal smoke, in noise! I see nothing gained in trimming and cutting and ploughing and macadamising a heavenly wilderness into mincing little gardens for the rich." He was smiling at his own vehemence, but she knew that he was more than half serious. She liked him so; she always denied and disputed when he became declamatory, though usually, in her heart, she agreed with him. "Oh--oh!" she protested, shaking her head; "your philosophy is that of all reactionaries--emotional arguments which never can be justified. Why, if the labouring man delights in the harmless hurdy-gurdy and finds his pleasure mounted on a wooden horse, should you say that the island of his delight is 'vile'? All fulfilment of harmless happiness is progress, my poor friend--" "But my harmless happiness lay in seeing the wild-fowl splashing where nothing splashes now except beer and the bathing rabble. If progress is happiness--where is mine? Gone with the curlew and the wild duck! Therefore, there is no progress. _Quod erat_, my illogical friend." "But _your_ happiness in such things was an exception--" "Exceptions prove anything!" "Yes--but--no, they don't, either! What nonsense you can talk when you try to. . . . As for me I'm going down to the Brier Water to look into it. If there are any trout there foolish enough to bite at those gaudy-feathered hooks I'll call you--" "I'm going with you," he said, rising to his feet. She smilingly ignored his offered hands and sprang erect unaided.