“About what?” demanded Teddie, taking her third slice of cinnamon-toast. “About that mix-up down in the Village.” “It wasn’t a mix-up,” corrected Teddie. “Then what was it?” “It was a revelation!” “A revelation of what?” asked Uncle Chandler as he put his teacup down. “Of what men are!” asserted the abstracted-eyed Teddie. “Of course,” said the old Major as he took out a chased gold case and meditatively extracted a cigarette. “So let’s have it, Teddikins, hook, line and sinker!” But Teddie shook her head. “I telegraphed to father,” she inappositely remarked. “Where _is_ Trummie this summer?” her uncle inquired. “He’s still at the Arizona Camp Observatory,” explained Teddie. “Trummie moves so slowly,” complained the old Major. “The poor man can’t help it, I suppose, trailing that chain of D. S.’s, and F. R. S.’s and F. R. G. S.’s around after him all the time. But I suppose you felt he was the proper person to talk such things over with?” Teddie nodded a slightly abstracted assent. “Yes, I felt that way. But I had a wire from father this morning. He says he’ll be through with his spectographic analysis of the Milky Way nebulæ before the end of October and that as soon as he feels sure he can synthesize an isotope of hydrogen approximating to nebulum he’ll come east and have a talk with me!” The old Major smiled pensively. “Yes, I remember what he said when the Rubber Trust swallowed up my little Congolo Company and squeezed me out after I’d squeezed out the original Amsterdammers: ‘The oysters eat the diatoms, and we eat the oysters!’ It makes me wish, Teddie, that I could be a philosopher now and then.” “I wish women could be,” remarked Teddie. “Then why not make a stab at it,” ventured the old gentleman who had been so intently studying her averted face, “by telling me what the trouble is?” “There’s really nothing to tell, Uncle Chandler,” solemnly asserted the young lady with the moody eyes, drawing the striped ticking of reticence over the brocaded injustices of youth. The old Major tossed away his cigarette. He sat staring at the poor little rich girl in the willow lawn-chair. He stared at her so long and so intently that she finally turned about and looked none too fraternally into his face. “What are you thinking about?” she asked. “It’s queer I never noticed it before,” remarked the old Major, apparently more to himself than to the girl confronting him. “Noticed what?” asked Teddie. “How you’re getting a bit like your mater,” replied the placid-eyed old gentleman in the armchair, “a bit tamed and trimmed off and ironed out!” “_I won’t be!_” proclaimed Teddie, with quite unlooked-for passion, as she got up from her chair. “But how, my dear, are you going to stop it?” asked the still equable old Major.