"They don't waste any of my time they get hold of, you'd better believe," said Magnus. "I should forget what time means if I didn't filch a little for my own use, now and then. This is: 'The Idle of the Summer Girl. By Two Who Idled With Her,' Cadet Rig being the other party. All the weak lines are his. There's another touching ditty on the same theme, much sung in camp at the time of full moon, but it takes two to do it justice, as you can judge from a specimen verse." Magnus twanged the banjo lugubriously, and began his song, changing voice for the supposed two singers, and giving the words of comment in his own: _1st Cadet_: "O the Summer Girl has come to town." _2d Cadet_: "Alas, my heart!" _1st Cadet_: "In a sky-scraper hat, and a trail--ing gown." _2d Cadet_: "Alas, my heart!" _3d Cadet_: "Steady on that, you haven't got any." At least four voices cried: "Go on! Go on!" "Can't," said Magnus; "it exhausts my feelings. Too spoony." "Is that the way you talk to each other?" said Violet. "Very much the way." "And does nobody take up the cudgels for the poor summer girl?" inquired Mr. Erskine. "Oh, I'll take them up, if you wish," said Magnus. "My Idle does her justice," and he dashed off into a tune crazy enough for a patchwork quilt: "I sing the song of the Summer Girl; She feels for the lonely cadet. Her chocolate creams, in my very dreams I seem to taste them yet." ("N. B.--The last ones weren't fresh. Bought at the station probably.") "The peaches she threw at my head at drill, The apples she dropped at my feet; The little pound cake that she made me take, First biting, to make it sweet." "Magnus--she didn't!" "Rose--she did!" "And you eat it?" "Tossed it over my shoulder while she bestowed one on Chappy. Robins aren't fetched up particular, as I was. Why, that's nothing!" "Nothing?" "No," said Magnus. "When a girl puts a lump of sugar between her teeth and comes round offering everybody a bite, that is rather steep." "And yet, long life to the Summer Girl! Far be it from me to flout her. She's made in the shop, and she's not tip-top, But what could we do without her? There were two spoons and a single dish, Two hearts that beat as one; When we sat by the wall before recall, Eating ice cream in the sun." A general shout of derision greeted this, except from Cherry, who had grown rather quiet over these extraordinary "idles." "Well, you must have been homesick, I should say," remarked Rose. "Why, Magnus, I did not know you had it in you to flirt," said his mother. "Don't think I have, mammy, to any dangerous extent. What's the row? Can't a man sing a song o' sixpence without being immediately spotted for one of the blackbirds?" "But eating out of the same dish!" said Violet.