In all the time I’ve known J. Meredith I’d never heard him try to spring anything comic before; but havin’ made such a hit with this one he follows with others, robbin’ the almanac regardless.

“Oh, you deliciously funny man!” gasps Pansy, tappin’ him playful on the shoulder.

Course, it wa’n’t any cabaret high jinks, you understand.  Meredith was just limbered up a little.  In the parlor afterwards while we was havin’ coffee he strings off quite a fancy line of repartee, fin’lly allowin’ himself to be pushed up to the piano, where he ripples through a few things from Bach and Beethoven and Percy Moore.  It’s near eleven o’clock when the Hibbs sisters get their wraps on and Merry starts to walk home with ’em.

“You might wait for me, Torchy,” says he, pausin’ at the door.

“Nonsense!” says Aunt Emma Jane.

“Time young people were in bed.  Good night, young man.”

There don’t seem to be any chance for a debate on the subject; so I goes up to my room.  But it’s a peach of a night, warm and moony; so after I turns out the light I camps down on the windowseat and gazes out over the shrubby towards the water.  I could see the top of the Hibbs house and a little wharf down on the shore.

I don’t know whether it was the moonlight or the coffee; but I didn’t feel any more like bed than I did like breakfast.  Pretty soon I hears Merry come tiptoein’ in and open his door, which was next to mine.  I was goin’ to hail him and give him a little josh about disposin’ of the sisters so quick; but I didn’t hear him stirrin’ around any more until a few minutes later, when it sounds as if he’d tiptoed downstairs again.  But I wasn’t sure.  Nothin’ doin’ for some time after that.  And you know how quiet the country can be on a still, moonshiny night.

I was gettin’ dopy from it, and was startin’ to shed my collar and tie, when off from a distance, somewhere out in the night, music breaks loose.  I couldn’t tell whether it was a cornet or a trombone; but it’s something like that.  Seems to come from down along the waterfront.  And, say, it sounds kind of weird, hearin’ it at night that way.  Took me sometime to place the tune; but I fin’lly makes it out as that good old mush favorite, “O Promise Me.”  It was bein’ well done too, with long quavers on the high notes and the low ones comin’ out round and deep.  Honest, that was some playin’.  I was wide awake once more, leanin’ out over the sill and takin’ it all in, when a window on the floor below goes up and out bobs a white head.  It’s Aunty.  She looks up and spots me too.

“Quite some concert, eh?” says I.

“Is that you, young man?” says she.

“Uh-huh,” says I.  “Just takin’ in the music.”

“Humph!” says she.  “I believe it’s that fool nephew of mine.”

“Not Merry?” says I.

“It must be,” says she.  “And goodness knows why he’s out making an idiot of himself at this time of night!  He’ll arouse the whole neighbourhood.”