These lines I've wrote to thee.

And sing 'em soft to me.

Some maiden fa-hair

With { ra-haven } hair

{ go-holden }

Will si-hing this so-hong

To me-hee-ee!

[Pg 1]

[Pg 1]

CHAPTER I

CONCERNING TWO GENTLEMEN FROM LONG ISLAND, DESTINY, AND A POT OF BLACK PAINT

"Hello, old man!" he began.

"Gillian," I said, "don't call me 'Old Man.' At twenty, it flattered me; at thirty, it was all right; at forty, I suspected double entendre; and now I don't like it."

"Of course, if you feel that way," he protested, smiling.

"Well, I do, dammit!"—the last a German phrase. I am rather strong on languages.

Now another thing that is irritating— I've got[Pg 2] ahead of my story, partly, perhaps, because I hesitate to come to the point.

[Pg 2]

For I have a certain delicacy in admitting that my second visit abroad, after twenty years, was due to a pig. So now that the secret is out—the pig also—I'll begin properly.

I purchased the porker at a Long Island cattle show; why, I don't know, except that my neighbor, Gillian Schuyler Van Dieman, put me up to it.

We are an inoffensive community maintaining a hunt 

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