W. V«.

a story. The way she took him in hand
was kindly yet resolute. It began with her
banging her head against something and
howling. “Don’t cry, dear,” Littlejohn had
entreated, with the crude pathos of an ama-
teur; “come, don’t cry.”

When W. V. had heard enough of this she
looked at him disapprovingly, and said,
«You should n’t say that. You should just
laugh and say, ‘Come, let me kiss that crystal
tear away!’ “Say it!” she added after a
pause. This was Littlejohn’s first lesson in
the airy art of consolation.

Littlejohn as a lyric poet was a melancholy
spectacle.

“Now, you say, ‘Come, let us go,’” W.
V. would command.

“T don’t know it, dear.”

“Tl say half for you —

“Come, let us go where the people sell —”

But Littlejohn had n’t the slightest notion
of what they sold.
“Bananas,” W. V. prompted ; “say it.”
« Bananas.”
“ And what?”
56