uniformed menials appeared--noiselessly, quickly and deferentially.
At this moment a boy with sandy hair brushed straight back in a
manner either statesmanlike or clownlike--things were too involved
to know which--shuffled in with an armful of yellow paper which he
flopped down on the pine table. After a minute he returned with a
warbled "Take Me Back to New York Town" and a paste-pot. And upon
his third appearance he was practising gymnastics with a huge pair
of shears, which he finally presented, grinningly.

There was a long pause, broken only by the sonorous voice of Dr.
Bunting upbraiding someone for not having billed out that stuff to
Apple Grove, and then the sandy-haired boy appeared bearing a large
dictionary, followed by the man in the skull cap behind a dictionary
of equal unwieldiness. These were set down on either side of the
yellow paper, and he who was filling the position of cultivated
gentleman pulled up a chair, briskly.

"Has Professor Lee explained to you the nature of our work?" he
wanted to know.

"No," she replied, half grimly, a little humourously, and not far
from tearfully, "he didn't--explain."

"Then it is my pleasure to inform you," he began, blinking at her
importantly, "that we are engaged here in the making of a
dictionary."

"A _dic--?_" but she swallowed the gasp in the laugh coming up
to meet it, and of their union was born a saving cough.