Jewel Weed

"I don't want a girl to make me drunk," ejaculated Norris.

"Well, I do," rejoined Dick.

"And though Miss Elton's emotions do not lie on the surface, I'll

warrant they are there," Ellery went on as though letting off pent-up

steam. "They are like her voice--like all her motions--neither loud nor

faint, but exquisitely modulated. She seems to me like the embodiment of

innocence,--not the innocence of ignorance, but the untaintedness of a

mind that goes through the world selecting the best, as the bee takes

honey and leaves the rest. There's no subject, so far as I can see, on

which she is afraid to think; but I can not imagine that any subject

would leave a deposit of mire in her mind."

"Gee whizz!" scoffed Dick. "How fluent your year of journalism has made

you! What a great thing it is to be a serious-minded young man with

eye-glasses, engaged, while yet in youth, in molding public opinion

through the mighty agent of the press! And Madeline is another of the

same kind."

"I wish I were of her kind," said Ellery stiffly. "You may poke fun at

me as much as you like, Dick, but it's beneath you to jeer at her."

"You old duffer, aren't you two the best friends I have in the world? I

like the clear and frosty mountain peaks."

"How did you find out about Barry?" Ellery asked abruptly.

"I do not have to tell you any more than Madeline." Seeing the grim look

on Norris' face, Dick went on, "Let's go in and to bed. We seem to rub

each other the wrong way to-night. If we don't separate soon we shall be

having a French duel."