“Mornin’,” it observed.  “I knew Eugene’s intellect was woozing again.  Always announcing some plan for us to bore each other, don’t you know, and never having it come off.”

“This is the place and the hour, Reggie,” declared Mr. Courtney.  “If you’ll just stay here I’ll send you out a brandy and soda and some cigars.”

“Thanks awfully, old man,” returned Reggie, looking dubiously out at the loggia.  It was enticing enough, with its broad, cool, tiled flooring and its vine-hung arches and its vistas of the tree-clad hills across the ravine; but it was empty.  “I think I’ll return when the rest of them are together.”, And Reggie, stumbling against the door-jamb on his way out, wandered away, choosing the right-hand passage because his body had happened to lurch in that direction.

“Johnny, if you say anything I’ll be peevish,” protested Courtney in advance.  “Please remember that the gentleman is a guest of mine.”

“I was grinning at something else,” Johnny soothed him, still grinning, however.

“I apologize,” observed Courtney.  “Do you think the Wobbles family will hold their conclave if each of them waits until all the others are together?”

“I hope so,” replied Johnny.  “I’ll make some money if they do.”

“How rude!” expostulated Courtney with a laugh.  “Business at a week-end house-party!”

“Business is right,” confessed Johnny.  “They admit that you run the best private exchange in America out here.”

Courtney, enjoying that remark, laughed heartily.

“I’m glad they give me credit,” he acknowledged.  “Well, help yourself to all the facilities.  Where are you going?”

“Library porch,” answered Johnny promptly.  “Excuse me, I’m in a hurry.”

Constance Joy was not on the library porch.  Instead, Johnny found there Polly Parsons and her adopted sister Winnie, Ashley Loring and Sammy Chirp.  This being almost a family party for Johnny, he had no hesitation in asking bluntly for Constance.

“This is her morning for Wobbling,” returned Polly disdainfully.  “A while ago she was dodging the perfectly careless compliments of old Tommy and trying not to see that his toupee was on crooked; and now she’s down toward the ravine some place, watching young Cecil stumble.  You could make yourself a very solid Johnny by trotting right down there and breaking up the party.”

“I think I’d rather have a messenger for that,” calculated Johnny.  “His brothers wish to see Cecil up in the east loggia.”

“Sammy will go,” offered Winnie confidently; whereat Sammy, smiling affably, promptly rose.

“Go with him, Winnie,” ordered Polly.  “Trot on now, both of you.  I want to talk sense.”

Quite cheerfully Winnie gave Sammy her fan, her parasol, her vanity box, her novel, her box of chocolates and her hat, stuffed a handkerchief in his pocket and said:  “Come on, Sammy; I’m ready.”