one of us got there first we waited for the other before beginning any
gallivantery.

"The first evening that Mrs. Jessup knew about our arrangement I got
to the bench before Paisley did. Supper was just over, and Mrs. Jessup
was out there with a fresh pink dress on, and almost cool enough to
handle.

"I sat down by her and made a few specifications about the moral
surface of nature as set forth by the landscape and the contiguous
perspective. That evening was surely a case in point. The moon was
attending to business in the section of sky where it belonged, and the
trees was making shadows on the ground according to science and
nature, and there was a kind of conspicuous hullabaloo going on in the
bushes between the bullbats and the orioles and the jack-rabbits and
other feathered insects of the forest. And the wind out of the
mountains was singing like a Jew's-harp in the pile of old tomato-cans
by the railroad track.

"I felt a kind of sensation in my left side--something like dough
rising in a crock by the fire. Mrs. Jessup had moved up closer.

"'Oh, Mr. Hicks,' says she, 'when one is alone in the world, don't
they feel it more aggravated on a beautiful night like this?'

"I rose up off the bench at once.

"'Excuse me, ma'am,' says I, 'but I'll have to wait till Paisley comes
before I can give a audible hearing to leading questions like that.'