"Dinner's on," called Mrs. Penniman.
"I'm having one of my bad days," groaned the judge. "Don't feel as if I could eat a mouthful."
But he was merely insuring that he could be the first to leave the table plausibly. He intended that the apparent misunderstanding about the wicker chair should have been but a thing of the moment, quickly past and forgotten.
"Why, what's the trouble with you, Father?" asked Winona in the tone of one actually seeking information.
The judge shot her a hurt look. It was no way to address an invalid of his standing.
"Chow, Spike," said Wilbur, and would have guided him, but Winona was lightly before him.
Dave Cowan followed them from the little house.
"Present me to His Highness," said he, after kneeling to kiss the hand of Winona.
The mid-afternoon hours beheld Spike Brennon again strangely occupying the wicker porch chair. He even wielded the judge's very own palm-leaf fan as he sat silent, sniffing at intervals toward the yellow rose. Once he was seen to be moving his hand, with outspread fingers, before his face.