Once, when I was galloping along the road in imitation of a horse, with
him perched on my shoulders--
"Say, Johnnie, I like you ... I won't call you buzzer any more!"
"I like you, too, Daniel, but don't squeeze me so hard about the neck
... it's choking my wind off."
* * * * *
That was a happy month ... that month of fine, fairly warm fall weather
that Darrie, Hildreth, Daniel and I spent together in the little cottage
back in the woods, secluded from the road.
The newspapers had begun to let up on us a little. It had grown a bit
galling and monotonous, the continual misrepresentations of ourselves
and what Hildreth and I were trying to stand for.
* * * * *
Now that I was playing the conventional game of evasion and hypocritic
subterfuge, holding a nominal lodging at Mrs. Rond's as one Mr. Arthur
Mallory, and explaining my being seen with Mrs. Baxter by the statement
that I was a writer sent down by a publishing house for the purpose of
helping her with a book she was engaged in writing--
Though everybody knew well who I was, it assuaged the American passion
for outward "respectability," and we were left, comparatively speaking,
alone to do as we wished....
* * * * *
Hildreth was a spoiled, willful little rogue ... once or twice she tried
a "soul-state" on me.
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