When Mr. King wrote his and his friend’s name in the book at the Mansion House, he had the curiosity to turn over the leaves, and it was not with much surprise that he read there the names of A. J. Benson, wife, and daughter, Cyrusville, Ohio.

“Oh, I see!” said the artist; “you came down here to see Mr. Benson!”

That gentleman was presently discovered tilted back in a chair on the piazza, gazing vacantly into the vacant street with that air of endurance that fathers of families put on at such resorts.  But he brightened up when Mr. King made himself known.

“I’m right glad to see you, sir.  And my wife and daughter will be.  I was saying to my wife yesterday that I couldn’t stand this sort of thing much longer.”

“You don’t find it lively?”

“Well, the livelier it is the less I shall like it, I reckon.  The town is well enough.  It’s one of the smartest places on the coast.  I should like to have owned the ground and sold out and retired.  This sand is all gold.  They say they sell the lots by the bushel and count every sand.  You can see what it is, boards and paint and sand.  Fine houses, too; miles of them.”

“And what do you do?”

“Oh, they say there’s plenty to do.  You can ride around in the sand; you can wade in it if you want to, and go down to the beach and walk up and down the plank walk—­walk up and down—­walk up and down.  They like it.  You can’t bathe yet without getting pneumonia.  They have gone there now.  Irene goes because she says she can’t stand the gayety of the parlor.”

From the parlor came the sound of music.  A young girl who had the air of not being afraid of a public parlor was drumming out waltzes on the piano, more for the entertainment of herself than of the half-dozen ladies who yawned over their worsted-work.  As she brought her piece to an end with a bang, a pretty, sentimental miss with a novel in her hand, who may not have seen Mr. King looking in at the door, ran over to the player and gave her a hug.  “That’s beautiful! that’s perfectly lovely, Mamie!”—­“This,” said the player, taking up another sheet, “has not been played much in New York.”  Probably not, in that style, thought Mr. King, as the girl clattered through it.

There was no lack of people on the promenade, tramping the boards, or hanging about the booths where the carpenters and painters were at work, and the shop men and women were unpacking the corals and the sea-shells, and the cheap jewelry, and the Swiss wood-carving, the toys, the tinsel brooches, and agate ornaments, and arranging the soda fountains, and putting up the shelves for the permanent pie.  The sort of preparation going on indicated the kind of crowd expected.  If everything had a cheap and vulgar look, our wandering critics remembered that it is never fair to look behind the scenes of a show, and that things would wear a braver appearance by and by.  And if the women on the promenade were homely and ill-dressed, even