And Harvey D. himself—­he tries to let on he’s very strict about the allowance, then he’ll pretend he didn’t pay me the last quarter and hand me two quarters at once.  He knows he’s a liar, and he knows I know it, too.  I guess I couldn’t have fallen in with a nicer bunch.  Even that funny daughter of Sharon’s, Cousin Juliana, she warms up now and then—­slips me a couple of twenties or so.  You should have seen the hit I made at prep!  Fellows there owe me money now that I bet I never do get paid back.  But no matter, of course.”

“That Juliana always makes me kind of shiver,” admitted Wilbur.  “She looks so kind of—­well, kind of lemonish.”

“She’s all of that, that old girl.  She’s the only one I never do get close to.  Soured old maid, I guess.  Looks at you a lot, but doesn’t say much, like she was sizing you up.  That nose of hers certainly does stand out like a peak or something.  You wouldn’t think it, either, but she reads poetry—­mushiest kind—­awful stuff.  Say, I looked into a book of hers one day over at the Old Place—­Something-or-Other Love Lyrics was the title—­murder!  I caught two or three things—­talk about raw stuff—­you know, fellows and girls and all that!  What she gets out of it beats me, with that frozen face of hers.”

A little later he portrayed the character of Patricia Whipple in terms that would have incensed her but that moved Wilbur to little but mild interest.

“You never know when you got your thumb on that kid,” he said.  “She’s the shifty one, all right.  Talk along to you sweet as honey, but all the time she’s watching for some chance to throw the harpoon into you.  Venomous—­regular vixen.  No sense of humour—­laughs at almost anything a fellow says or does.  Trim you in a minute with that tongue of hers.  And mushy!  Reads stories about a young girl falling in love with strange men that come along when her car busts down on a lonely road.  Got that bug now.  Drives round a whole lot all alone looking for the car to go blooey and a lovely stranger to happen along and fix it for her that turns out to be a duke or something in disguise.  Sickening!

“Two years ago she got confidential one night and told me she was going to Italy some day and get carried off to a cave by a handsome bandit in spite of her struggles.  Yes, she would struggle—­not!  Talk about mental hazards, she’s one, all right!  She’ll make it lively for that family some day.  With Harvey D. depending on me a lot, I’m expecting to have no end of trouble with her when she gets to going good.  Of course she’s only a kid now, but you can plot her curve easy.  One of these kind that’ll say one thing and mean another.  And wild?  Like that time when she started to run off and found us in the graveyard—–­remember?”

They laughed about this, rehearsing that far-off day with its vicissitudes and sudden fall of wealth.

“That was the first day the Whipples noticed me,” said Merle.  “I made such a good impression on them they decided to take me.”