“Here on the island?” asked Chub interestedly.
“No, some distance up the river, near where a small stream enters.”
“I know the place,” said Chub eagerly. “We must try it some time, fellows.”
“Then you have a boat,” said Roy.
“Yes,” answered the Poet. “The Minerva. She is neither large nor beautiful, but she does very well. I bought her for four dollars and a half, throwing in a set of dentist’s instruments. The instruments originally cost nearly twenty dollars, but they were no longer in their first bloom.”
“Are you a dentist, too?” asked Harry, shrinking a little away from him.
“I was a dentist for a brief space,” was the reply. “But I never had any heart for the profession. I am by nature, though I say it myself, very gentle. If I had my way there’d be no pain in the world. Naturally, extracting teeth was not an agreeable task; I believe that in most cases I suffered more agony than the patient. Would it be a breach of manners to ask for another small piece of the ham?”
“No, indeed,” declared Dick, replenishing the guest’s plate. Although he had been talking almost constantly since sitting down, the Poet had managed to do full justice to the viands. Harry was at first pained to observe that his table manners did not match his speech; he relied rather too much on his knife, for one thing, while there was also a marked tendency to fill the mouth somewhat too full and to talk while it was in that condition. But presently Harry recollected that the poets of whom she had read had all been notably eccentric and, in some cases, even more disregardful of the social niceties than Mr. Noon.
“Are you going to be here long?” asked Roy when the visitor’s wants had been attended to.
“I hardly know,” was the reply. “It is a convenient spot and very attractive and peaceful. I love peace and Nature. I have led rather a busy life heretofore, and now to sleep under the trees when I want to, to lie on my back in the sunlight, to watch the water ripple past the boat—these are delights for which my soul has long yearned.”