"'Fish, Fish, art thou in thy duty?' The fishes raised their heads and said, 'If you reckon, we reckon—'" The youth looked around the breakfast table amiably as if he expected to be answered in kind. Receiving no like sallies he pushed his chair and sauntered forth, followed in a few discreet seconds by Minga. As the two fussed over the car-washing, low voices discussed beside their own plan the whole problem of the Man on the Place.
"It's the real thing for Con Sordino, I guess," Dunstan sighed. "Gosh, suppose the duffer is a confidence man or a bigamist? The papers have such every day; their kind always gets amnesia when convenient," the boy sighed; "sort of rotten to have your own sister go nuts on a Wandering Willy. I wonder." The lad turning on the hose, softly whistled. Minga giggled.
"It's so funny," she declared, "as if Sard sort of thought Colter would turn to a prince if you only waved the right wand."
"No, it's not that; she really saw a prince or something like that in him," the brother declared. "Sard's like that when she looks at anybody, Minga; she doesn't see an ordinary flapper, like you; she sees a future stateswoman, a fearless fighter for the good, the true, the pure, the thing that might be." Dunstan was only half flippant.
"My goodness!" Minga was awed. "But say, about Colter. I went up to that room after he left, the room over the garage, and will you believe it, I found Sard there. She was sitting queer and still and in her hand she had a book she'd lent him. Well, my word," said Minga violently, "it was the awfulest old scientific flubdub, first causes, amœbas and protoplasms, all those out-of-date things."
"Yep, all the hogwash; they still print it," said Dunstan. "That was the old fellow's line, always chewing at those bones the old guy was; self-made-man-stuff, y' know."
The girl groaned. "Don't I hate it! We had it at college, so of course I'm through it all. You going to cram your two last years with that sawdust?" inquired Minga.
The washer of automobiles ceased his sponging of the long green body. Dunstan stood, brown-shirted sleeves rolled up, young head hot and tumbled, eye bright and discriminating.
"No, Grandma," he turned promptly, "I am not. I cram on facts. See? I cut out all the frills and monkey and snail lore, and I root around just enough Latin and mathematics to look good to the old-timers. All I want is a diploma. See, so's I can walk into any chap's office and call him Bill and look him in his Pie Rooky Beta Kipper eye and say, 'Now then, my young Arabian Nights Oil Pasha, I may look like the One-eyed Calendar, but I've got the same world-series, all-American learning you've got, and I don't propose to be kicked out of this office till I get what I came for, see?' That," said Dunstan mopping his brow, "is my idea of education."
Minga nodded. "You sure do need an education in business," the girl agreed thoughtfully. "I know the Mede keeps saying that if he had his choice he'd give up his income and keep his brains, but not me," said serious Minga. "What use would my brains be to me if I hadn't an income?"