Lena, the maid, knew about it, she shut up and was decent because she didn’t want to worry mother.  A toad is such an unusual creature to live with.  I’ve got a string to his hind leg, but yet he gets into places where you don’t expect him, and it’s very interesting.  Lena seemed to think it wasn’t nice to have him in the towels in the wash-stand drawer, but I didn’t care.  It doesn’t hurt the towels and it’s cosey for the toad.

I had a little snake—­a stunner—­but Lena squealed when she found him in my collars, so I had to take him away.  He looked awfully cunning inside the collars, but Lena wouldn’t stand for him, so I let well enough alone and tried to be contented with the toad and the puppy and some June-bugs I’ve got in boxes in the closet, and my lizard—­next to mother, he’s my best friend—­I’ve had him six months.  I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather lose mother than him, because you can get a step-mother, but it’s awfully difficult to replace a lizard like Diogenes.  I wonder if Lorraine will think I’ve written too much about my animals?  They’re more fun than Peggy anyway, and as for Harry Goward—­golly!  The toad or lizard that couldn’t be livelier than he is would be a pretty sad animal.

A year ago I was fishing one day away up the river, squatting under a bush on a bank, when Peggy and Dr. Denbigh came and plumped right over my head.  They didn’t see me—­but it wasn’t up to me.  They were looking the other way, so they didn’t notice my fish-line either.  They weren’t noticing much of life as it appeared to me except their personal selves.  I thought if they wouldn’t disturb me I wouldn’t disturb them.  At first I didn’t pay attention to what they were saying, because there was a chub and a trout together after my bait, and I naturally was excited to see if the trout would take it.  But when I’d lost both of them I had time to listen.

I wouldn’t have believed it of Dr. Denbigh, to bother about a girl like Peg, who can’t do anything.  And he’s a whale, just a whale.  He’s six feet-two, and strong as an ox.  He went through West Point before he degraded himself into a doctor, and he held the record there for shot-putting, and was on the foot-ball team, and even now, when he’s very old and of course can’t last long, he plays the best tennis in Eastridge.  He went to the Spanish War—­quite awhile ago that was, but yet in modern times—­and he was at San Juan.  You can see he’s a Jim dandy—­and him to be wasting time on Peggy—­it’s sickening!  Even for a girl she’s poor stuff.  I don’t mean, of course, that she’s not all right in a moral direction, and I wouldn’t let anybody else abuse her.  Everybody says she’s pretty, and I suppose she is, in a red-headed way, and she’s awfully kind, you know, but athletically—­that’s what I’m talking about—­she doesn’t amount to a row of pins.  She can’t fish or play tennis or ride or anything.