“Galatea!” hailed the Poet from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes, George?”

“There’s a letter from Arthur. Come down.”

“I can’t, this moment. Je suis en déshabillé.”

“I thought so; your voice sounds full of pins. But you don’t need to air your Vassar French. The pig isn’t listening.”

“My French prose is better than your English verse. What does Arthur say?”

“He’ll be out here early.”

“What for?”

“Girl, have a care! While you are about it, make the most of the small charms with which the good Lord has endowed you.”

68“I will, brother mine; I’m expecting Reginald to have his back scratched.”

Truth to tell, the pig was already contemplating a call with that object in view. Since early morning Cleopatra and her yearling colt, Mrs. Cowslip and Gustavius, and William, the big-horned one, had diligently cropped the dewy grass of the lower lawn until their sides bulged, while Reginald was so replete with artichokes that he was constrained to sit on his haunches and grunt stuffily while making occasional rude comments on the gluttony of his comrades.

“You have often reproved me for being greedy,” grunted Reginald as the colt harvested a luscious bunch a yard from where he sat, “yet I have never tried to eat up the whole pasture between sunrise and noon.”

“Don’t give me any of your impudence,” retorted Clarence, with his mouth full, “or I’ll 69shut my teeth on one of your ridiculous, flapping ears.”

“If you gave milk,” commented Mrs. Cowslip, “you would understand the necessity of a stomach filled with something better than artichokes.”

“Ha! ha!” laughed the pig, with his mouth wide open. “The sides of your son bulge like the sides of the barrel in which Gabe keeps your breakfast of bran. Ha! ha! does Gustavius give milk?”

“Let me at him, mother,” said the bull-calf, waving his tail aloft and lowering his horns. “I’ll teach him!”

“No, you don’t,” said the pig, showing surprising agility. “You greedy fellows annoy me; I’m going to the house and get that red-headed girl to scratch my back.”

So intensely satisfied with himself that the kink in his tail tightened to the verge of discomfort, 70Reginald scampered across the lawn and up the steps leading to the veranda. With his forefeet on the top step he halted at a gruff challenge from Napoleon. The bull-terrier, with teeth unpleasantly visible, barred his way to the door.

“My goodness,” said the pig, with easy assurance, “how you startled me! You were always such a joker.” And Reginald got his forefeet on the veranda floor.

“Now, that’s the limit,” growled Napoleon. “One step farther, and I’ll have your ears in ribbons.”

“You don’t know how handsome you are when you put on that fierce look,” said the pig in flattering tones. “Any stranger would believe you in earnest. But you and I know each other.”

“What do you want?” growled Napoleon, somewhat mollified in spite of himself by the pig’s flattery.

71“I’ve nothing to conceal from you, Napoleon. I never have. I’ve come to get that lovely red-headed girl to scratch my back.”

“You’ll have to wait; she’s inside.”

“I’ll go right in,” grunted Reginald complacently; “no trouble at all, I assure you. Just step one side, Napoleon, and I won’t disturb you in the least.”

“You’ll come right in?” Napoleon was boiling with indignation. “Who ever heard of a pig in the parlor? You’ll get right out of here before I make you.”

Reginald assumed a look of injured amazement as he replied: “Is it possible, Napoleon, that you really mean to do me this injustice? Have you forgotten that we are all on terms of equality here?”

“Not in the parlor,” growled Napoleon. “No pig gets into our parlor, not if I know it.”

72“But you go into the parlor whenever you please,” grumbled Reginald.

“It’s part of my business to go all over the house and see that there’s no trespassing. That’s what’s been expected of us dogs ever since the world began. Amanda raised an awful row that time the colt got in the kitchen. But I wasn’t to blame, being away from home with Gabe and Cleopatra.”

The pig, with all the stubbornness of his race, refused to be convinced.

“The Professor used to invite me in often,” he complained. “The red-headed girl would, too, I’m sure, if she knew I was here.”

“No, she wouldn’t. She’s busy with that automobile chap. Can’t you hear their voices through the window?”

Reginald listened. Yes, it was the voice he loved so well—when accompanied by the delicious sensation of one of Amanda’s cast-off 73nutmeg-graters being rubbed smartly up and down his spine. It was cool and even, and was saying:—

“No, Arthur, I won’t go for a walk, thank you. I don’t think I like you very well to-day. You explain that you walked over from the station out of regard for the feelings of Cleopatra and Clarence, and yet you are wholly oblivious of my feelings. You come out here without your Red Ripper on an ideal day for a spin, and then you add insult to injury by talking of nothing else. Arthur, I hate your Red Ripper, I despise its phenomenally perfect sparking device, I loathe its triple-speed gear—”

The pig lifted up his voice in supplication. It was not in vain. Galatea emerged upon the veranda, smiling a welcome to Reginald, whom the Artist regarded with dark looks of resentment.

74“Good-morning, Reginald; won’t you be seated?” she said brightly, dragging forward an easy-chair.

The intelligent pig scrambled into the chair, making confidential little throaty grunts out of the side of his mouth into the ear of his hostess. The bull-terrier satisfied his dignity by barking one brief comment for Reginald’s benefit:—

“Now what do you think? This isn’t the parlor. Perhaps you’ll understand after this that the veranda is the limit, for a pig.”

“Hush, Napoleon,” commanded the red-headed girl. “Here, get up beside Reginald and make him feel at home.”

It was a wide chair. After but one instant of disgusted hesitation, the bull-terrier obeyed.

“What has the terrier done that he should be so humiliated?” asked the Artist, who 75had even more than the average man’s respect for dogs as compared with other domestic animals.

The girl ignored the question. There was something odd and unfamiliar in her manner, a peculiar glint in her eye, her full lips were drawn in a straighter line than usual. Having no professional interest in the scene, the Artist—unluckily for him—observed none of these ominous signs. Galatea shook her finger in the terrier’s face.

“Napoleon, your manner toward Reginald is not cordial. Sit closer!”

The terrier meekly obeyed. The pig gave him an expansive smile. The Artist began an impulsive protest:—

“Oh, now, I say, Galatea—”

“Napoleon! Reginald! Salute each other!”

The dog thumped the chair with his tail, the pig grunted amiably, and they pressed their 76cheeks together like affectionate children. The lank figure and solemn visage of the Poet appeared in the door.

“What is Napoleon’s crime that he should suffer such punishment?” he inquired.

“Just as I was remarking,” began the Artist; “but—”

“That will do,” said the girl, taking no notice of these comments. “Now sit up and look pleasant; you are about to have your pictures taken by a very celebrated artist.”

Both Reginald and Napoleon assumed attitudes really remarkable for their ease and naturalness.

“Ahem!” began the Artist, growing very red in the face, and stopped abruptly at a coolly inquiring glance from Galatea.

“Do I understand,” she inquired frigidly, “that you take the absurd position of Paderewski, Calvé, Jean de Reszke, and other public 77favorites, and disdain to exhibit your art upon social occasions?”

“Not at all,” answered the Artist hastily, while the Poet regarded them solemnly, but with a twinkle in his eye. “No, but—Well, you see, I—I am not accustomed to have pigs sit to me for their portraits—at least, not upon social occasions.”

“It is perhaps as well that you should understand fully that Reginald is a personal friend of mine, and that we are on terms, not only of sympathetic affection, but of perfect equality.” And the girl placed her arm about the pig’s neck with a caressing touch that sent him into a transport of appreciative grunts.

“If I thought that you were guying me—”

The girl turned upon him sharply. “Have I ever insinuated that you were guying me when you compelled me to listen for hours to mechanical details about your Red Ripper? I, 78to whom poets are proud to read their original manuscripts in advance of publication?”

“Arthur,” said the Poet gravely, “Galatea is right. This is a case of love me, love my pig. Your professional pride need not suffer. In fact, the result of your labors may bear appropriately a title that is classical.” He turned to his sister. “Galatea, I assume that you are to be in the picture—you will sit with the pig?”

“Certainly,” said the girl, as a swift glance of understanding passed between brother and sister.

“Why, then, just consider, Arthur,” said the Poet cheerfully, “you can send your picture to the Fall Exhibition catalogued as, ‘Pig-Malion and Galatea.’”

The girl laughed in spite of herself. Even the over-serious Artist was not proof against a conceit so pungent. But Galatea’s mood puzzled and disturbed him, for he really loved her as 79self-complacent young men often do love girls of keen wit and analytical minds.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “I have no drawing materials with me.”

“I can supply them,” replied the girl, rising.

Reginald grunted reproachfully and started to scramble down from the chair.

“O Reginald, forgive me. I had forgotten you came to have your poor back scratched.”

She turned to the Artist. “Arthur, kindly hand me that nutmeg-grater over by the honeysuckle vine.”

The Artist obeyed. The pig grunted in grateful anticipation. Galatea applied the nutmeg-grater where she knew by experience it would do the most good. Napoleon sniffed disgustedly, jumped down from the chair, and went to the Poet for consolation.

“Now, Arthur,” said the girl presently, handing him the nutmeg-grater, “you attend 80to Reginald while I go for the drawing materials.”

The Artist took the unfamiliar instrument, looked at it, and then at the pig, and then at Galatea. He seemed dazed. As has been remarked before in this truthful narrative, the Artist was a most correct and proper young man. He was fashionably dressed, and with excellent taste. He would have considered it a crime to wear a cravat that disagreed by so much as a single dot or stripe from the prevailing mode. The thought of having in any way transgressed the rules of good form, as laid down in the exclusive club of which he was a member, would have tortured him for weeks. Could he conscientiously scratch a pig’s back—with a cast-off nutmeg-grater?

Galatea drew up a chair close to that occupied by Reginald. “Come, Arthur; you will not find Reginald ungrateful.”

81“Galatea,” said the Artist, with a supplicating glance into the girl’s eyes as he moved toward the vacant chair, “when I leave this evening will you walk part way to the station with me?”

“Are you going to be a true friend to my friend—to Reginald?”

The Poet had strolled to the other end of the veranda.

“Yes, Galatea. You could have no friend who would be unworthy of my friendship.” In spite of the nutmeg-grater in his hand, in spite of the waiting pig, his manner and his voice were romantic.

“Yes, Arthur, then I will walk with you to the station.” But the smile she gave him was reflective, and at least half of it rested on the pig.

The Artist sat down obediently and applied the nutmeg-grater with a will to Reginald’s back. Galatea disappeared within the house. 82Presently she was heard calling to her brother. The Poet followed her. He found her in the library, sitting limply in a straight-backed chair and holding her handkerchief to her mouth. With a gesture of warning she dragged him into her own little den off the library, closed the door, and gave her merriment full rein. The Poet regarded her solemnly. Presently she was able to speak, though her phrases were interrupted............