“Immense.  The sauce is the main thing with whitebait.”

“It makes a difference, doesn’t it?” I asked, looking him straight in the eye.  He understood.

“Look here, Bob,” he said, “I was going to tell you.  I couldn’t help it.  I’ll play fair with you, but I’m going in to win.  She is the ‘one particular’ for me.”

“All right,” said I.  “It’s a fair field.  There are no rights for you to encroach upon.”

On Thursday afternoon Miss Ashton invited North and myself to have tea in her apartment.  He was devoted, and she was more charming than usual.  By avoiding the subject of caps I managed to get a word or two into and out of the talk.  Miss Ashton asked me in a make-conversational tone something about the next season’s tour.

“Oh,” said I, “I don’t know about that.  I’m not going to be with Binkley & Bing next season.”

“Why, I thought,” said she, “that they were going to put the Number One road company under your charge.  I thought you told me so.”

“They were,” said I, “but they won’t..  I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.  I’m going to the south shore of Long Island and buy a small cottage I know there on the edge of the bay.  And I’ll buy a catboat and a rowboat and a shotgun and a yellow dog.  I’ve got money enough to do it.  And I’ll smell the salt wind all day when it blows from the sea and the pine odor when it blows from the land.  And, of course, I’ll write plays until I have a trunk full of ’em on hand.

“And the next thing and the biggest thing I’ll do will be to buy that duck-farm next door.  Few people understand ducks.  I can watch ’em for hours.  They can march better than any company in the National Guard, and they can play ‘follow my leader’ better than the entire Democratic party.  Their voices don’t amount to much, but I like to hear ’em.  They wake you up a dozen times a night, but there’s a homely sound about their quacking that is more musical to me than the cry of ‘Fresh strawber-rees!’ under your window in the morning when you want to sleep.

“And,” I went on, enthusiastically, “do you know the value of ducks besides their beauty and intelligence and order and sweetness of voice?  Picking their feathers gives you an unfailing and never-ceasing income.  On a farm that I know the feathers were sold for $400 in one year.  Think of that!  And the ones shipped to the market will bring in more money than that.  Yes, I am for the ducks and the salt breeze coming over the bay.  I think I shall get a Chinaman cook, and with him and the dog and the sunsets for company I shall do well.  No more of this dull, baking, senseless, roaring city for me.”

Miss Ashton looked surprised.  North laughed.

“I am going to begin one of my plays tonight,” I said, “so I must be going.”  And with that I took my departure.

A few days later Miss Ashton telephoned to me, asking me to call at four in the afternoon.