Picking up Kitty's banjo, he smote the strings uncertainly and half sang, half declaimed:—
"'With my Hya! Heeya! Heeya! Hullah! Haul!
Oh, the green that thunders aft along the deck!
Are you sick of towns and men? You must sign and sail again,
For it's Johnny Bowlegs, pack your kit and trek!'
"By Jove! Kipling's right; nothing like a banjo, is there? Now then, Young Person, I'm with you. Good night; good night!"
While his voice was still echoing down the stairway, Miss Bryant came running up again.
"Say, got a photograph of yourself, Helen?" she asked.
She had apparently quite recovered from her emotion, and her tone expressed an odd mixture of business and affection.
"I believe if I showed Big Tom a picture of you," she explained, "he'd run a story—there's your science, you know, and your music—on the Society page, maybe."
"But I haven't any picture; at least, any that you'd want—only a few taken months ago, for my father."
"Show me those; why won't they do?"
"Oh, they aren't good; they—they don't look like me. Besides, I really couldn't let you print my picture, Cadge."