first time. And I made myself many kinds of spectators, from crabbed
old maids and lean pantaloons to girls in boarding school and Greek
boys of thousands of years ago.

"After that I put it to music. I played it on the piano, and guessed
the playing of it on full orchestras and blaring bands. I chanted it,
I sang it-epic, lyric, comic; and, after a weary long while, of course
I slept in the midst of it, and knew not that I slept until I awoke at
twelve to-day. The last time I had heard the clock strike was six. Six
unbroken hours is a capital prize for me in the sleep lottery."

As she finished, Mr. Hennessy rode away on a cross path, and Dick
Forrest dropped back to squire his wife on the other side.

"Will you sport a bet, Evan?" he queried.

"I'd like to hear the terms of it first," was the answer.

"Cigars against cigars that you can't catch Paula in the tank inside
ten minutes--no, inside five, for I remember you're some swimmer."

"Oh, give him a chance, Dick," Paula cried generously. "Ten minutes
will worry him."

"But you don't know him," Dicked argued. "And you don't value my
cigars. I tell you he is a swimmer. He's drowned kanakas, and you know
what that means."

"Perhaps I should reconsider. Maybe he'll slash a killing crawl-stroke
at me before I've really started. Tell me his history and prizes."