Others may do as they please, but as for me," he concluded ferociously, "I shall never disclose to anybody that an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, a juggler of comic paragraphs, is not a priceless pearl of art and philosophy." "I don't believe a word of it is true," said Miss Worcester.
"What do you expect of autobiography ?" demanded Hollanden, with asperity.
"Well, anyhow, Hollie," exclaimed the younger sister, "you didn't explain a thing about how literary men came to be so peculiar, and that's what you started out to do, you know." "Well," said Hollanden crossly, "you must never expect a man to do what he starts to do, Millicent.

And besides," he went on, with the gleam of a sudden idea in his eyes, "literary men are not peculiar, anyhow." The elder Worcester girl looked angrily at him.

"Indeed?
Not you, of course, but the others." "They are all asses," said Hollanden genially.
The elder Worcester girl reflected.

"I believe you try to make us think and then just tangle us up purposely!" The younger Worcester girl reflected.

"You are an absurd old thing, you know, Hollie!" Hollanden climbed offendedly from the great weather-beaten stone.