"In Paris he would have been a great man," Henry replied.
They got off at a milk station and strolled along a road. A piece of newspaper fluttered on the ground in front of them.
"There is just enough of a breeze to stir a scandal," said Richmond, treading upon the paper.
"When I find a newspaper in an out-of-the-way place," Henry replied, "I fancy that the world has lost one of its visiting-cards."
They stopped at a farm-house, engaged a boat, and then went down to the lake. Nature wore a thoughtful, contemplative smile, and the lake was a dimple. A flawless day; an Indian summer day, gauzed with a glowing haze. And the smaller trees, in recognition of this grape-juice time of year, had adorned themselves in red. October, the sweetest and mellowest stanza in God Almighty's poem—the dreamy, lulling lines between hot Summer's passion and Winter's cold severity. On the train they had been boys, but now they were men, looking at the tranquil, listening to the immortal.
"Did you speak?" Henry asked.
"No," said Richmond, "it was October."
They floated out on the lake. Mud-hens, in their midsummer fluttering, had woven the rushes into a Gobelin tapestry. The deep notes of the old frog were hushed, but in an out-of-the-way nook the youngster was trying his voice on the water-dog. A dragon-fly lighted on a stake and flashed a sunbeam from his bedazzled wing; and a bright bug, like a streak of blue flame, zigzagged his way across the smooth water.
An hour passed. "They won't bite," said Richmond. "In this pervading dreaminess they have forgotten their materialism."
"Probably they are tired of minnows," Henry replied. "Suppose we try frogs."