“But that Miss Von Eaton looked like such a peach!” protested the Younger Man worriedly.

“That’s exactly what I say,” droned the Older Man.

“Why, she’s the handsomest girl here!” insisted the Younger Man arrogantly.

“That’s exactly what I say,” droned the Older Man.

“And the best dresser!” boasted the Younger Man stubbornly.

“That’s exactly what I say,” droned the Older Man.

“Why, just that pink paradise hat alone would have knocked almost any chap silly,” grinned the Younger Man a bit sheepishly.

“Humph!” mused the Older Man still droningly.  “Humph!  When a chap falls in love with a girl’s hat at a summer resort, what he ought to do is to hike back to town on the first train he can catch—­and go find the milliner who made the hat!”

“Hike back to—­town?” gibed the Younger Man.  “Ha!” he sneered.  “A chap would have to hike back a good deal farther than ‘town’ these days to find a girl that was worth hiking back for!  What in thunder’s the matter with all the girls?” he queried petulantly.  “They get stupider and stupider every summer!  Why, the peachiest debutante you meet the whole season can’t hold your interest much beyond the stage where you once begin to call her by her first name!”

Irritably, as he spoke, he reached out for a bright-covered magazine from the great pile of books and papers that sprawled on the wicker table close at his elbow.  “Where in blazes do the story-book writers find their girls?” he demanded.  Noisily with his knuckles he began to knock through page after page of the magazine’s big-typed advertisements concerning the year’s most popular story-book heroines.  “Why—­here are no end of story-book girls,” he complained, “that could keep a fellow guessing till his hair was nine shades of white!  Look at the corking things they say!  But what earthly good are any of ’em to you?  They’re not real!  Why, there was a little girl in a magazine story last month—!  Why, I could have died for her!  But confound it, I say, what’s the use?  They’re none of ’em real!  Nothing but moonshine!  Nothing in the world, I tell you, but just plain made-up moonshine!  Absolutely improbable!”

Slowly the Older Man drew in his long, rambling legs and crossed one knee adroitly over the other.

“Improbable—­your grandmother!” said the Older Man.  “If there’s—­one person on the face of this earth who makes me sick it’s the ninny who calls a thing ‘improbable’ because it happens to be outside his own special, puny experience of life.”

Tempestuously the Younger Man slammed down his magazine to the floor.

“Great Heavens, man!” he demanded.  “Where in thunder would a fellow like me start out to find a story-book girl?  A real girl, I mean!”

“Almost anywhere—­outside yourself,” murmured the Older Man blandly.

“Eh?” jerked the Younger Man.

“That’s what I said,” drawled the Older Man with unruffled suavity.  “But what’s the use?” he added a trifle more briskly.  “Though you searched a thousand years!  A ‘real girl’?  Bah!  You wouldn’t know a ‘real girl’ if you saw her!”