“Of course you do.” Blotte burst out into a great laugh. He suddenly button-holed him again: “I say, I suppose you wouldn’t care to—come—and see the almonds bloom?”

He gazed at his dandified host, and slowly shook his head. The wreath came down over one eye:

“You won’t come to meet the pageant of the Spring?”

He shook his head in answer to the other’s shake; and, turning clumsily, lurched towards the door.

Emma Hartroff called to him from her sofa:

“Where are you going, Blotte?”

At the door Blotte halted and faced the room:

“Goo’-night!” he said. “I would embrace you, Emma, but there are so many of you it would seem polygamous.”

He squealed gaily, and kicked out a leg—it nearly flung him off his feet.

As he fumbled at the handle: