I wanted to throw up a coin, heads for Phyllis, tails for Gretchen, but I couldn't bring myself to gamble on the matter.

I threw a stick at his squirrelship, and he scurried into the hole in the crotch of the tree.

A moment later he peered at me, and, seeing that nothing was going to follow the stick, crept out on the limb again, his tail bristling with indignation.
"If it hadn't been for Gretchen," said I, "you would have been a potpie long ago." He must have understood my impotence, for he winked at me jeeringly.
A steamer came along then, puffing importantly, sending a wash almost at my feet.

I followed it with my eye till it became lost around the bend.

Over there was Austria and beyond, the Orient, a new world to me.
"If I could see them together!" I mused aloud.
The squirrel cocked his head to one side as if to ask: "Austria and Turkey ?" "No," said I, looking around for another stick; "Phyllis and Gretchen.
If I could see them together, you know, I could tell positively then which I love.