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 went in for, but she suspected him of affairs with ge-, arche-, and the-, and mild flirtations with flighty young modern ones, such as paleont- and anthrop-. His windows overlooked a rock garden as lacking in flora as, according to his candid niece, his life was lacking in the flowers and fruits of sin.

Rhoda introduced her companion, whom Mr. Pearn seemed to remember from a visit to Aldergrove fifteen years previously. "During the Christmas holidays it was," he reminisced. "Just after my return from Babylon. You were coasting down a hill."

The return from Babylon, Grover reflected, sounded like a title, and his incorrigibly irrelevant mind sketched in a picture of Mortimer's flaccid form encased in breastplate and shin guards, Mortimer poring over Persian hieroglyphics while Alexander the Great sowed oats for him and all the Pearns to come.

"Half the hill belongs to the Thanets," Rhoda threw in, "and the other half to us."

"Mother and I own the half you have to walk up," mused Grover aloud, then was afraid Mr. Pearn might not see any sense in the remark. Almost none of the things I say, he was thinking, make sense per se—only per me.

"And what are you studying for?" inquired Mr. Pearn a little later, as though he felt it incumbent upon him to show an interest, and as though he had hit on an original topic of conversation. It means