And a swell time I had too, buttin' my way through a five-foot hedge
and landin' in a veg'table garden. But I wades through tomatoes and
lettuce until I strikes a gravel path, and in a couple of minutes I'm
out on the dock just as the soloist is hittin' up "Believe Me, if All
Those Endearing Young Charms." Aunty had the correct dope. It's
Merry, all right. The first glimpse he gets of me he starts guilty and
tries to hide the cornet under the tails of his dress coat.

"No use, Merry," says I. "You're pinched with the poultry."

"Wha-a-at!" says he. "Oh, it's you, is it, Torchy? Please--please
don't mention this to my aunt."

"She beat me to it," says I. "It was her sent me out after you with a
stop order. She says for you to chop the nocturne and go back to the
hay."

"But how did she---- Oh, dear!" he sighs. "It was all her fault,
anyway."

"I don't follow you," says I. "But what was it, a serenade?"

"Goodness, no!" gasps J. Meredith. "Who suggested that?"

"Why, it has all the earmarks of one," says I. "What else would you be
doin', out playin' the cornet by moonlight on the dock, if you wa'n't
serenadin' someone?"

"But I wasn't, truly," he protests. "It--it was the champagne, you
know."