This morning both he and the Keith girl were arrayed in the gayest of summer regalia.  Young Smith’s white flannel trousers were carefully creased, his blue serge coat was without a wrinkle, his tie and socks were a perfect match, and his cap was of a style which the youth of South Harniss might be wearing the following summer, but not this one.  Take him “by and large,” as Captain Shadrach would have said, Crawford Smith was an immaculate and beautiful exhibit; of which fact he, being eighteen years of age, was doubtless quite aware.

He and the Keith girl were, so Mary-’Gusta learned, a committee of two selected to purchase certain supplies for a beach picnic, a combination clambake and marshmallow toast, which was to take place over at Setuckit Point that day.  Sam Keith, Edna’s brother, and the other members of the party had gone on to Jabez Hedges’ residence, where Jabez had promised to meet them with the clams and other things for the bake.  Edna and her escort, having made their purchases at Hamilton and Company’s, were to join them at the “clam-man’s.”  Then the whole party was to go down to the wharf and the sailboat.

Miss Edna, who was a talkative damsel, informed Mary-’Gusta of these facts at once.  Also she announced that they must hurry like everything.

“You see,” she said, “we told Sam and the rest we’d be at the clam-man’s in ten minutes, and, if we’re not there, Sam will be awfully cross.  He hates to wait for people.  And we’ve been too long already.  It’s all your fault, Crawford; you would stop to hear that fruit man talk.  I told you you mustn’t.”

The “fruit man” was Mr. Gaius Small, and, although he stammered, he loved the sound of his own voice.  The demand for a dozen oranges furnished Gaius with subject sufficient for a lengthy monologue—­“forty drawls and ten stutters to every orange,” quoting Captain Shad again.

“I told you you mustn’t get him started,” went on Miss Keith, gushingly.  “He’ll talk forever if he has a chance.  But you would do it.  Asking him if he kept pomegranates and bread-fruit!  The idea!  I’m sure he doesn’t know what a pomegranate is.  You were so solemn and he was so ridiculous!  I thought I should die.  You really are the drollest person, Crawford Smith!  I don’t know what I shall do with you.”

It was evident that her opinion of young Smith was not different from that of other young ladies of her age.  Also that Crawford himself was not entirely unconscious of that opinion.  At eighteen, to be set upon a pedestal and worshiped, to have one’s feeblest joke hailed as a masterpiece of wit, is dangerous for the idol; the effort of sustaining the elevated position entails the risk of a fall.  Crawford was but eighteen and a good fellow, but he had been worshiped a good deal.  He was quite as sensible as other young chaps of his age, which statement means exactly that and no more.

“Well,” he said, with a complacent grin, “we learned how to pronounce ‘pomegranate’ at any rate.  You begin with a pup-pup-pup, as if you were calling a dog, and you finish with a grunt like a pig.  I wish I had asked him for a persimmon; then he’d have made a noise like a cat.”