square arbor, a shady retreat covered with purple wistaria and
honeysuckle. As I entered the arbor I noticed that there were three
other people seated there--an elderly lady with masculine features and
short hair, a younger lady sitting beside her, and, farther away, a
rough-looking young man reading a book.

For a moment I had an indistinct impression of having met the elder
lady somewhere, and under circumstances not entirely agreeable, but
beyond a stony and indifferent glance she paid no attention to me. As
for the younger lady, she did not look at me at all. She was very
young, with pretty eyes, a mass of silky brown hair, and a skin as
fresh as a rose which had just been rained on.

With that delicacy peculiar to lonely scientific bachelors, I modestly
sat down beside the rough young man, although there was more room
beside the younger lady. "Some lazy loafer reading a penny dreadful,"
I thought, glancing at him, then at the title of his book. Hearing me
beside him, he turned around and blinked over his shabby shoulder, and
the movement uncovered the page he had been silently conning. The
volume in his hands was Darwin's famous monograph on the monodactyl.

He noticed the astonishment on my face and smiled uneasily, shifting
the short clay pipe in his mouth.

"I guess," he observed, "that this here book is too much for me,
mister."

"It's rather technical," I replied, smiling.

"Yes," he said, in vague admiration; "it's fierce, ain't it?"