complaint of over-work, but Dick Mostyn, your Atlanta boarder, writes
that he's a little bit run down an' wants to come an' stay a solid
month. Money seems to be no object to him, an' he says if he kin just
git the room he had before an' a chance at your home cooking three
times a day he will be in clover."

"Well, well, well!" Lucy cried, in a tone of delight, "so he wants to
come ag'in, an' all this time I've been thinkin' he'd never think of
us any more. There wasn't a thing for him to do that summer but lie
around in the shade, except now an' then when he was off fishin' or
huntin'."

"Well, I hope you will let 'im come," John Webb drawled out, in his
slow fashion. "I can set an' study a town dude like him by the hour
an' never git tired. I never kin somehow git at what sech fellers
_think_ about or _do_ when they are at home. He makes money, but
_how_? His hands are as soft an' white as a woman's. His socks are as
thin an' flimsy as spider-webs. He had six pairs o' pants, if he had
one, an' a pair o' galluses to each pair. I axed him one day when they
was all spread out on his bed what on earth he had so many galluses
for, an' Mostyn said--I give you my word I'm not jokin'--he said"--
Webb laughed out impulsively--"he said it was to keep from botherin'
to button 'em on ever' time he changed! He said"--the bachelor
continued to laugh--"that he could just throw the galluses over his
shoulders when he was in a hurry an' be done with the job. Do you
know, folks, if I was as lazy as that I'd be afraid the Lord would cut
me off in my prime. Why, a feller on a farm has to do more than that
ever' time he pulls a blade o' fodder or plants a seed o' corn."

"Well, of course, I want 'im to come." Mrs. Drake had not heard a word