Mount Dunstan liked the look of him, and seeing his natural start at the unheralded leap over the gap, which was quite close to him, he spoke.

“Good-morning,” he said.  “I am afraid I startled you.”

“Good-morning,” was the response.  “It was a bit of a jolt seeing you jump almost over my shoulder.  Where did you come from?  You must have been just behind me.”

“I was,” explained Mount Dunstan.  “Standing in the park listening to the robin.”

The young fellow laughed outright.

“Say,” he said, “that was pretty fine, wasn’t it?  Wasn’t he getting it off his chest!  He was an English robin, I guess.  American robins are three or four times as big.  I liked that little chap.  He was a winner.”

“You are an American?”

“Sure,” nodding.  “Good old Stars and Stripes for mine.  First time I’ve been here.  Came part for business and part for pleasure.  Having the time of my life.”

Mount Dunstan sat down beside him.  He wanted to hear him talk.  He had liked to hear the ranchmen talk.  This one was of the city type, but his genial conversational wanderings would be full of quaint slang and good spirits.  He was quite ready to converse, as was made manifest by his next speech.

“I’m biking through the country because I once had an old grandmother that was English, and she was always talking about English country, and how green things was, and how there was hedges instead of rail fences.  She thought there was nothing like little old England.  Well, as far as roads and hedges go, I’m with her.  They’re all right.  I wanted a fellow I met crossing, to come with me, but he took a Cook’s trip to Paris.  He’s a gay sort of boy.  Said he didn’t want any green lanes in his.  He wanted Boolyvard.”  He laughed again and pushed his cap farther back on his forehead.  “Said I wasn’t much of a sport.  I tell you, a chap that’s got to earn his fifteen per, and live on it, can’t be too much of a sport.”

“Fifteen per?” Mount Dunstan repeated doubtfully.

His companion chuckled.

“I forgot I was talking to an Englishman.  Fifteen dollars per week—­that’s what ‘fifteen per’ means.  That’s what he told me he gets at Lobenstien’s brewery in New York.  Fifteen per.  Not much, is it?”

“How does he manage Continental travel on fifteen per?” Mount Dunstan inquired.

“He’s a typewriter and stenographer, and he dug up some extra jobs to do at night.  He’s been working and saving two years to do this.  We didn’t come over on one of the big liners with the Four Hundred, you can bet.  Took a cheap one, inside cabin, second class.”

“By George!” said Mount Dunstan.  “That was American.”

The American eagle slightly flapped his wings.  The young man pushed his cap a trifle sideways this time, and flushed a little.

“Well, when an American wants anything he generally reaches out for it.”