He stared at me, and then came over to me.

“Put out your tongue,” he said.

Even against this crowning infamey I was silent.

“That’s all right,” he said. “Now see here, Chicken, get into your riding togs and we’ll order the horses. I don’t intend to let this play-acting upset your health.”

But I refused. “Unless, of course, you insist,” I finished. He only shook his head, however, and left the room. I felt that I had lost my Last Friend.

I did not try the keys myself, but instead stood off a short distance and through them through the window. I learned later that they struck Mr. Beecher on the head. Not knowing, of course, that I had flung them, and that my reason was pure Friendliness and Idealizm, he through them out again with a violent exclamation. They fell at my feet, and lay there, useless, regected, tradgic.

At last I summoned courage to speak.

“Can’t I do somthing to help?” I said, in a quaking voice, to the window.

There was no anser, but I could hear a pen scraching on paper.

“I do so want to help you,” I said, in a louder tone.