remember the time when a man in a motor was an easy mark for every reuben
in the county. They got rich on us."

She responded to his mood, which was wholly irresponsible, exuberant, and
they laughed together like children, every little incident assuming an
aspect irresistibly humorous. Once he stopped to ask an old man standing
in his dooryard how far it was to Kingsbury.

"Wal, mebbe it's two mile, they mostly call it two," said the patriarch,
after due reflection, gathering his beard in his band. "Mebbe it's more."
His upper lip was blue, shaven, prehensile.

"What did you ask him for, when you know?" said Janet, mirthfully, when
they had gone on, and Ditmar was imitating him. Ditmar's reply was to
wink at her. Presently they saw another figure on the road.

"Let's see what he'll say," Ditmar proposed. This man was young, the
colour of mahogany, with glistening black hair and glistening black eyes
that regarded the too palpable joyousness of their holiday humour in mute
surprise.

"I no know--stranger," he said.

"No speaka Portugueso?" inquired Ditmar, gravely.

"The country is getting filthy with foreigners," he observed, when he had
started the car. "I went down to Plymouth last summer to see the old
rock, and by George, it seemed as if there wasn't anybody could speak
American on the whole cape. All the Portuguese islands are dumped there
--cranberry pickers, you know."