it writhed and twisted before his dizzy eyes.

Every sentence was a struggle; more than one of the words he was
forced to spell aloud just out of sheer self-defense; and always
against Eve Edgarton's little intermittent nod of encouragement was
balanced that hateful sniffing sound of surprise and contempt from the
orchid table in the window.

Despairingly he skipped a few lines to the next unfamiliar words that
met his eye.

"The Neozoic flora,"

he read,

"consists mainly of--of Angio--Angiosper--"

Still smiling, but distinctly wan around the edges of the smile, he
slammed the handful of papers down on his knee. "If it really doesn't
make any difference where we begin, Miss Eve," he said, "for Heaven's
sake--let's begin somewhere else!"

"Oh--all right," crooned little Eve Edgarton.

Expeditiously Barton turned to another page, and another, and
another. Wryly he tasted strange sentence after strange sentence. Then
suddenly his whole wonderful face wreathed itself in smiles again.

"Three superfamilies of turtles,"