Life rolled away in its customary monotony and gradually the curtains of our horizon were drawn back to reveal new interests and new hopes. Leon and I seemed to grow more similar in appearance and more dissimilar in nature as we grew up. Aunt Elinor used to say that our sexes were all mixed up, that our natures were diametrically opposite to our respective physiques, and for once she was really near the truth, since I was very much of a tomboy while Leon was an ethereal-spirited, effeminate, poetic soul who cringed from all physical matters and even resented having to be near my dog Esky, who worshiped the very ground I walked on and evinced not uncertainly his suspicions of people who were too nasty nice to play with a pup now and then. Leon wasted no love on Esky and once declared that the pup’s mother must have been promiscuous. Well, Esky was nothing but a mongrel, to be sure, although Aunt Elinor said his mother was a thoroughbred Eskimo dog, but even thoroughbreds have been known to have cuckold husbands; mongrel or not, a dog instinctively attaches himself to the man of the house—but not so with Esky. He hadn’t any use for Leon at all, probably because Leon high-hatted him, whereas I liked nothing better than a chance to romp and wrestle with him. You can readily understand how I looked upon my sweet brother. He did none of the things that regular boys do. Sports and games and any kind of exercise that was the least bit rough did not appeal to him at all. I even suspected that he was too damned nice to be interested in girls—but on this point I was mistaken, for I discovered that Vyvy Martin, one of Wakeham’s deep-eyed débutante beauties, was more or less Leon’s soul mate. One was about as dizzy as the other, so they made a perfect couple, entirely sufficient unto themselves—a condition which must, I suppose, be called Love. But you can imagine how I looked upon Leon when every impulse in me was toward the very kind of living which he shunned. It seemed that not a day went by without my wishing I were in his shoes so that I could chase off and enjoy myself as he should enjoy himself. Truly in mental and emotional equipment, we were as dissimilar as Tom Thumb and the Fat Lady.