Mrs. Fanhall, with the two children, the Worcester girls, and Hollanden, clambered down the rocky path. Miss Fanhall and Hawker had remained on top of the . Hollanden showed much in conducting his to the foot of the falls. Through the trees they could see the , a great white thing, booming and thundering until all the leaves gently .  
"I wonder where Miss Fanhall and Mr. Hawker have gone?" said the younger Miss Worcester. "I wonder where they've gone?"
 
"Millicent," said Hollander, looking at her fondly, "you always had such great thought for others."
 
"Well, I wonder where they've gone?"
 
At the foot of the falls, where the mist arose in silver clouds and the green water swept into the pool, Miss Worcester, the elder, seated on the , exclaimed, "Oh, Mr. Hollanden, what makes all literary men so ?"
 
"And all that just because I said that I could have made better digestive organs than , if it is true that he made mine," replied Hollanden, with reproach. "Here, Roger," he cried, as he dragged the child away from the , "don't fall in there, or you won't be the full-back at Yale in 1907, as you have planned. I'm sure I don't know how to answer you, Miss Worcester. I've inquired of innumerable literary men, and none of 'em know. I may say I have chased that problem for years. I might give you my personal history, and see if that would throw any light on the subject." He looked about him with chin high until his glance had the two vague figures at the top of the cliff. "I might give you my personal history——"
 
Mrs. Fanhall looked at him , and the elder Worcester girl cried, "Oh, do!"
 
After another scanning of the figures at the top of the cliff, Hollanden established himself in an pose on a great weather-beaten stone. "Well—you must understand—I started my career—my career, you understand—with a determination to be a prophet, and, although I have ended in being an , a trained bear of the magazines, and a of comic paragraphs, there was once carved upon my lips a smile which made many people me, for it hung before them like a banshee whenever they tried to be satisfied with themselves. I was informed from time to time that I was making no great holes in the universal plan, and I came to know that one person in every two thousand of the people I saw had heard of me, and that four out of five of these had forgotten it. And then one in every two of those who remembered that they had heard of me regarded the fact that I wrote as a great impertinence. I admitted these things, and in defence merely builded a that stated that each wise man in this world is amid some twenty thousand fools. If you have eyes for mathematics, this conclusion should interest you. Meanwhile I created a gigantic dignity, and when men saw this dignity and heard that I was a literary man they respected me. I concluded that the simple campaign of existence for me was to the populace, or as much of it as would look at me. I did. I do. And now I can make myself quite happy about it. Others may do as they please, but as for me," he concluded , "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 ?" demanded Hollanden, with .
 
"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 .
 
The elder Worcester girl reflected. "I believe you try to make us think and then just 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. "Well, I shall go and see that the men have not spilled the while breaking their necks over these rocks. Would you like to have it spread here, Mrs. Fanhall? Never mind consulting the girls. I assure you I shall spend a great deal of energy and temper in them into doing just as they please. Why, when I was in Brussels——"
 
"Oh, come now, Hollie, you never were in Brussels, you know," said the younger Worcester girl.
 
"What of that, Millicent?" demanded Hollanden. "This is autobiography."
 
"Well, I don't care, Hollie. You tell such whoppers."
 
With a gesture of despair he again started away; whereupon the Worcester girls shouted in chorus, "Oh, I say, Hollie, come back! Don't be angry. We didn't mean to tease you, Hollie—really, we didn't!"
 
"Well, if you didn't," said Hollanden, "why did you——"
 
The elder Worcester girl was gazing at the top of the cliff. "Oh, there they are! I wonder why they don't come down?"