MR. PARCHER AND LOVE

Mr. Parcher, that unhappy gentleman, having been driven indoors from his
own porch, had attempted to read Plutarch's Lives in the library, but,
owing to the adjacency of the porch and the summer necessity for open
windows, his escape spared only his eyes and not his suffering ears. The
house was small, being but half of a double one, with small rooms, and
the "parlor," library, and dining-room all about equally exposed to the
porch which ran along the side of the house. Mr. Parcher had no refuge
except bed or the kitchen, and as he was troubled with chronic insomnia,
and the cook had callers in the kitchen, his case was desperate. Most
unfortunately, too, his reading-lamp, the only one in the house, was a
fixture near a window, and just beyond that window sat Miss Pratt and
William in sweet unconsciousness, while Miss Parcher entertained the
overflow (consisting of Mr. Johnnie Watson) at the other end of the
porch. Listening perforce to the conversation of the former couple
though "conversation" is far from the expression later used by Mr.
Parcher to describe what he heard--he found it impossible to sit
still in his chair. He jerked and twitched with continually increasing
restlessness; sometimes he gasped, and other times he moaned a little,
and there were times when he muttered huskily.

"Oh, cute-ums!" came the silvery voice of Miss Pratt from the likewise
silvery porch outside, underneath the summer moon. "Darlin' Flopit,
look! Ickle boy Baxter goin' make imitations of darlin' Flopit again.
See! Ickle boy Baxter puts head one side, then other side, just
like darlin' Flopit. Then barks just like darlin' Flopit! Ladies and
'entlemen, imitations of darlin' Flopit by ickle boy Baxter."