It was on Monday that we really got things started, and on Monday afternoon Miss Summers came out to the shelter-house in a towering rage.

“Where’s Mr. Pierce?” she demanded.

“I guess you can see he isn’t here,” I said.

“Just wait until I see him!” she announced.  “Do you know that I am down on the blackboard for the military walk to-day?

“Why not?”

She turned and glared at me.  “Why not?” she repeated.  “Why, the audacity of the wretch!  He brings me out into the country in winter to play in his atrocious play, strands me, and then tells me to walk twenty miles a day and smile over it!” She came over to me and shook my arm.  “Not only that,” she said, “but he has cut out my cigarettes and put Arabella on dog biscuit—­Arabella, who can hardly eat a chicken wing.”

“Well, there’s something to be thankful for,” I said.  “He didn’t put you on dog biscuit.”

She laughed then, with one of her quick changes of humor.

“The worst of it is,” she said, in a confidential whisper, “I’ll do it.  I feel it.  I guess if the truth were known I’m some older than he is, but—­I’m afraid of him, Minnie.  Little Judy is ready to crawl around and speak for a cracker or a kind word.  Oh, I’m not in love with him, but he’s got the courage to say what he means and do what he says.”

She went to the door and looked back smiling.

“I’m off for the wood-pile,” she called back.  “And I’ve promised to chop two inches off my heels.”

As I say, they took to it like ducks to water—­except two of them, von Inwald and Thoburn.  Mr. von Inwald stayed on, I hardly know why, but I guess it was because Mr. Jennings still hadn’t done anything final about settlements, and with the newspapers marrying him every day it wasn’t very comfortable.  Next to him, Mr. Thoburn was the unhappiest mortal I have ever seen.  He wouldn’t leave, and with Doctor Barnes carrying out his threat to take six inches off his waist, he stopped measuring window-frames with a tape line and took to measuring himself.

I came across him on Wednesday—­the third day—­straggling home from the military walk.  He and Mr. von Inwald limped across the tennis-court and collapsed on the steps of the spring-house while the others went on to the sanatorium.  I had been brushing the porch, and I leaned on my broom and looked at them.

“You’re both looking a lot better,” I said.  “Not so—­well, not so beer-y.  How do you like it by this time?”

“Fine!” answered Mr. Thoburn.  “Wouldn’t stay if I didn’t like it.”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“But I’ll tell you this, Minnie,” he said, changing his position with a groan to look up at me, “somebody ought to warn that young man.  Human nature can stand a lot but it can’t stand everything.  He’s overdoing it!”

“They like it,” I said.

“They think they do,” he retorted.  “Mark my words, Minnie, if he adds another mile to the walk to-morrow there will be a mutiny.  Kingdoms may be lost by an extra blister on a heel.”