MARTIN ASSERTS HIS INDIVIDUALITY
“Good-morning,” said Mr. Clyde, as he approached Mr. and Mrs. Archibald, seated opposite each other at their breakfast-table. “So you still eat together? Don’t ask me to join you; I have had my breakfast.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Archibald, “we did think that, as we were hermits, we ought to eat in some separate, out-of-the-way fashion; but we could not think of any, and as we were both hungry and liked the same things, we concluded to postpone the assertion of our individualities.”
“And Miss Dearborn?” asked Clyde.
“Oh, she had her breakfast long ago, so she told us,” said Mrs. Archibald. “I suppose she took some bread and jam, for I do not know what else she could have had.”
“As for me,” said Clyde, “I thought I would do something of the sort. I like an early breakfast, and so I turned out, more than an hour ago and went to look up Mrs. Perkenpine; and I might as well say, sir, that I am now looking for the bishop to come and help me carry our tent back to our own camp, where he is going to cook for us. I never wanted to be a trespasser on your premises, and I don’t intend to be such any longer.”
“That’s the right feeling,” said Mr. Archibald; “although, in fact, it doesn’t make any difference to us whether your party camps here or not. At first I thought it would, but I find it does not.”
“By which he means,” said Mrs. Archibald, “that if you want to go away he is perfectly willing to have you stay, but if you don’t want to go away he doesn’t like it, and would have you move.”
Clyde laughed. “I haven’t anything to say for the others,” he answered, “but as long as I have a camp of my own I think I ought to live there.”
“But how about Mrs. Perkenpine?” asked Mrs. Archibald. “Did you find her willing to wait on you, one at a time?”