had always an indefinable drollery about him that
made him agreeable company to his friends, at
least; and such an admiring friend he had constantly
at hand in the person of Bert Haines. Both
were Bohemians in natural tendency, and, though
John was far in Bert's advance in point of age, he
found the young man "just the kind of a fellow to
have around;" while Bert, in turn, held his senior
in profound esteem--looked up to him, in fact, and
even in his eccentricities strove to pattern himself
after him. And so it was, when summer days were
dull and tedious, these two could muse and doze the
hours away together; and when the nights were long,
and dark, and deep, and beautiful, they could drift
out in the noonlight of the stars, and with "the soft
complaining flute" and "warbling lute," "lay the
pipes," as John would say, for their enduring
popularity with the girls! And it was immediately
subsequent to one of these romantic excursions, when
the belated pair, at two o'clock in the morning, had
skulked up a side stairway of the old hotel, and
gained John's room, with nothing more serious happening
than Bert falling over a trunk and smashing
his guitar,--just after such a night of romance and
adventure it was that, in the seclusion of John's
room, Bert had something of especial import to
communicate.

"Mack," he said, as that worthy anathematized
a spiteful match, and then sucked his finger.