IV + 

The reason why George Finch⁠—for it was he⁠—was behaving strangely was that he was a shy young man and consequently unable to govern his movements by the light of pure reason. The ordinary tough-skinned everyday young fellow with a face of brass and the placid gall of an Army mule would, of course, if he had decided to pay a call upon a girl in order to make inquiries about her dog, have gone right ahead and done it. He would have shot his cuffs and straightened his tie, and then trotted up the steps and punched the front-door bell. Not so the diffident George. + 

George’s methods were different. Graceful and, in their way, pretty to watch, but different. First, he stood for some moments on one foot, staring at the house. Then, as if some friendly hand had dug three inches of a meat-skewer into the flesh of his leg, he shot forward in a spasmodic bound. Checking this as he reached the steps, he retreated a pace or two and once more became immobile. A few moments later, the meat-skewer had got to work again and he had sprung up the steps, only to leap backwards once more on to the sidewalk. + 

When Mr. Waddington first made up his mind to accost him, he had begun to walk round in little circles, mumbling to himself. + 

Sigsbee Waddington was in no mood for this sort of thing. It was the sort of thing, he felt bitterly, which could happen only in this degraded East. Out West, men are men and do not dance tangoes by themselves on front doorsteps. Venters, the hero of Riders of the Purple Sage, he recalled, had been described by the author as standing “tall and straight, his wide shoulders flung back, with the muscles of his arms rippling and a blue flame of defiance in his gaze.” How different, felt Mr. Waddington, from this imbecile young man who seemed content to waste life’s springtime playing solitary round-games in the public streets. + 

“Hey!” he said sharply. + 

The exclamation took George amidships just as he had returned to the standing-on-one-leg position. It caused him to lose his balance, and if he had not adroitly clutched Mr. Waddington by the left ear, it is probable that he would have fallen. + 

“Sorry,” said George, having sorted himself out. + 

“What’s the use of being sorry?” growled the injured man, tenderly feeling his ear. “And what the devil are you doing anyway?” + 

“Just paying a call,” explained George. + 

“Doing a what?” + 

“I’m paying a formal call at this house.” + 

“Which house?” + 

“This one. Number sixteen. Waddington, Sigsbee H.” + 

Mr. Waddington regarded him with unconcealed hostility. + 

“Oh, you are, are you? Well, it may interest you to learn that I am Sigsbee H. Waddington, and I don’t know you from Adam. So now!” + 

George gasped. + 

“You are Sigsbee H. Waddington?” he said reverently. + 

“I am.” + 

George was gazing at Molly’s father as at some beautiful work of art⁠—a superb painting, let us say⁠—the sort of thing which connoisseurs fight for and which finally gets knocked down to Dr. Rosenbach for three hundred thousand dollars. Which will give the reader a rough idea of what love can do: for, considered in a calm and unbiased spirit, Sigsbee Waddington was little, if anything, to look at. + 

“Mr. Waddington,” said George, “I am proud to meet you.” + 

“You’re what?” + 

“Proud to meet you.” + 

“What of it?” said Sigsbee Waddington churlishly. + 

“Mr. Waddington,” said George, “I was born in Idaho.” + 

Much has been written of the sedative effect of pouring oil on the raging waters of the ocean, and it is on record that the vision of the Holy Grail, sliding athwart a rainbow, was generally sufficient to still the most fiercely warring passions of young knights in the Middle Ages. But never since history began can there have been so sudden a change from red-eyed hostility to smiling benevolence as occurred now in Sigsbee H. Waddington. As George’s words, like some magic spell, fell upon his ears, he forgot that one of those ears was smarting badly as the result of the impulsive clutch of this young man before him. Wrath melted from his soul like dew from a flower beneath the sun. He beamed on George. He pawed George’s sleeve with a paternal hand. + 

“You really come from the West?” he cried. + 

“I do.” + 

“From God’s own country? From the great wonderful West with its wide open spaces where a red-blooded man can fill his lungs with the breath of freedom?” + 

It was not precisely the way George would have described East Gilead, which was a stuffy little hamlet with a poorish water-supply and one of the worst soda-fountains in Idaho, but he nodded amiably. + 

Mr. Waddington dashed a hand across his eyes. + 

“The West! Why, it’s like a mother to me! I love every flower that blooms on the broad bosom of its sweeping plains, every sun-kissed peak of its everlasting hills.” + 

George said he did, too. + 

“Its beautiful valleys, mystic in their transparent, luminous gloom, weird in the quivering, golden haze of the lightning that flickers over them.” + 

“Ah!” said George. + 

“The dark spruces tipped with glimmering lights! The aspens bent low in the wind, like waves in a tempest at sea!” + 

“Can you beat them!” said George. + 

“The forest of oaks tossing wildly and shining with gleams of fire!” + 

“What could be sweeter?” said George. + 

“Say, listen,” said Mr. Waddington, “you and I must see more of each other. Come and have a bite of dinner!” + 

“Now?” + 

“Right this very minute. We’ve got a few of these puny-souled Eastern millionaires putting on the nosebag with us tonight, but you won’t mind them. We’ll just look at ’em and despise ’em. And after dinner, you and I will slip off to my study and have a good chat.” + 

“But won’t Mrs. Waddington object to an unexpected guest at the last moment?” + 

Mr. Waddington expanded his chest, and tapped it spaciously. + 

“Say, listen⁠—what’s your name?⁠—Finch?⁠—Say, listen, Finch, do I look like the sort of man who’s bossed by his wife?” + 

It was precisely the sort of man that George thought he did look like, but this was not the moment to say so. + 

“It’s very kind of you,” he said. + 

“Kind? Say, listen, if I was riding along those illimitable prairies and got storm-bound outside your ranch at East Gilead, you wouldn’t worry about whether you were being kind when you asked me in for a bite, would you? You’d say, ‘Step right in, pardner! The place is yours.’ Very well, then!” + 

Mr. Waddington produced a latchkey. + 

“Ferris,” said Mr. Waddington in the hall, “tell those galoots down in the kitchen to set another place at table. A pard of mine from the West has happened in for a snack.” + 