--If my father'd only brought me up to half a decent trade!

Nothing I can give you--nothing but the rhymes--
Nothing but the empty speech, the idle words and few,
The mind made sick with irony you helped so many times,
The strengthless water of the soul your truthfulness kept true.

Take the little withered things and neither laugh nor cry
--Gifts to make a sick man glad he's going out like sand--
They and I are yours, you know, as long as there's an I.
Take them for the ages. Then they may not shame your
hand._

"... For there groweth in great abundance
in this land a small flower, much blown about
by winds, named 'Young People's Pride'..."

DYCER'S _Herbal_
YOUNG PEOPLES PRIDE



I

It is one of Johnny Chipman's parties at the Harlequin Club, and as usual
the people the other people have been asked to meet are late and as usual
Johnny is looking hesitatingly around at those already collected with the
nervous kindliness of an absent-minded menagerie-trainer who is trying to
make a happy family out of a wombat, a porcupine, and two small Scotch
terriers because they are all very nice and he likes them all and he can't