offense to pin to his indictment of irritation against the great island republic of Caracuña. Such is the temper one gets into after a year in the tropics. 

 Like as peas are panama hats to the eyes of the inexpert; far more like than men who live under them. For the girl, it was a direct inference that this was a hat which she knew intimately; which, indeed, she had rather maliciously eluded, not half an hour before. Therefore, she addressed it familiarly: “Boo!” 

 The result of this simple monosyllable exceeded her fondest expectations. There was a sharp exclamation of surprise, followed by a cry that might have meant dismay or wrath or both, as something metallic tinkled and slid, presently coming to a stop beside the hat, where it revealed itself as a pair of enormous, aluminum-mounted brown-green spectacles. After it, on all fours, scrambled the owner. 

 Shock number one: It wasn’t the man at all! Instead of the black-haired, flanneled, slender Adonis whom the trouble-maker confidently assumed to have been under that hat, she beheld a brownish-clad, stocky figure with a very blond head. 

 Shock number two: The figure was groping lamentably and blindly in the undergrowth, and when, for an instant, the face was turned half toward her, she saw that the eyes were squinted tight-closed, with a painful extreme of muscular tension about them. 

 Presently one of the ranging hands encountered the spectacles, and settled upon them. With careful touches, it felt them all over. A mild grunt, presumably of satisfaction, made itself heard, and the figure got to its feet. But before the face turned again, the girl had stepped back, out of range. 

 Silence, above and below; a silence the long persistence of which came near to constituting shock number three. What sort of hermit had she intruded upon? Into what manner of remote Brahministic contemplation had she injected that impertinent “Boo!”? Who, what, how, why— 

 “Say it again.” The request came from under the rock. Evidently the spectacled owner had resumed his original situation. 

 “Say what again?” she inquired. 

 “Anything,” returned the voice, with child-like content. 

 “Oh, I—I hope you didn’t break your glasses.” 

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