“I think they’re bunk.”

“Then why did you get them?”

“Oh, I suppose I was looking for something,” he returned; and though his tone was careless, she noticed for the first time a tinge of self-consciousness.

“Did you find it there?”

“No.  It isn’t there.”

“Here?” She laid both hands on the “windfall.”

His face lighted subtly.

“It is there, isn’t it!  If one has the sense to get it out.”

“I wonder,” mused the girl.  And again, “I wonder.”  She rose, and taking out “March Hares” held it up.  “I could hardly believe this when I saw it.  Did it also drop out of a car window?”

“No.  I never heard of that until I wrote for it.  I wrote to a Boston bookstore that I’d heard about and told ’em I wanted two books to cheer up a fool with the blues, and another to take him into a strange world—­and keep the change out of five dollars.  They sent me ’The Bab Ballads’ and this, and ‘Lavengro.’”

“Oh, how I’d like to see that letter!  If the bookstore has an ounce of real bookitude about it, they’ve got it preserved in lavender!  And what do you think of ’March Hares’?”

“Did you ever read any of the works of Harvey Wheelwright?” he questioned in turn.

“Now,” thought Io, “he is going to compare Frederic to Wheelwright, and I shall abandon him to his fate forever.  So here’s his chance ...  I have,” she replied aloud.

“It’s funny,” ruminated Banneker.  “Mr. Wheelwright writes about the kind of things that might happen any day, and probably do happen, and yet you don’t believe a word of it.  ’March Hares’—­well, it just couldn’t happen; but what do you care while you’re in it!  It seems realer than any of the dull things outside it.  That’s the literary part of it, I suppose, isn’t it?”

“That’s the magic of it,” returned Io, with a little, half-suppressed crow of delight.  “Are you magic, too, Mr. Banneker?”

“Me?  I’m hungry,” said he.

“Forgive the cook!” she cried.  “But just one thing more.  Will you lend me the poetry book?”

“It’s all marked up,” he objected, flushing.

“Are you afraid that I’ll surprise your inmost secrets?” she taunted.  “They’d be safe.  I can be close-mouthed, even though I’ve been chattering like a sparrow.”

“Take it, of course,” he said.  “I suppose I’ve marked all the wrong things.”

“So far,” she laughed, “you’re batting one hundred per cent as a literary critic.”  She poured coffee into a tin cup and handed it to him.  “What do you think of my coffee?”

He tasted it consideringly; then gave a serious verdict.  “Pretty bad.”

“Really!  I suppose it isn’t according to the mail-order book recipe.”

“It’s muddy and it’s weak.”

“Are you always so frank in your expression of views?”

“Well, you asked me.”

“Would you answer as plainly whatever I asked you?”