The Unspeakable Perk. Samuel Hopkins Adams

      “Not on the rock. In Caracuna?”

      “Quite a long time. Nearly a fortnight.”

      The commentary on this was so indefinite that she was moved to inquire:—

      “Is that a local dialect you're speaking?”

      “No; that was a grunt.”

      “I don't think it was a very polite grunt, even as grunts go.”

      “Perhaps not. I'm afraid I'm out of the habit.”

      “Of grunting? You seem expert enough to satisfy—”

      “No; of being polite. I'll apologize if—if you'll only go on talking.”

      She laughed aloud.

      “Or laughing,” he amended promptly. “Do it again.”

      “One can't laugh to order!” she protested; “or even talk to order. But why do you stay 'way out here in the mountains if you're so eager to hear the human voice?”

      “The human voice be—choked! It's YOUR human voice I want to hear—your kind of human voice, I mean.”

      “I don't know that my kind of human voice is particularly different from plenty of other human voices,” she observed, with an effect of fine impartial judgment.

      “It's widely different from the kind that afflicts the suffering ear in this part of the world. Fourteen months ago I heard the last American girl speak the last American-girl language that's come within reach of me. Oh, no—there WAS one, since, but she rasped like a rheumatic phonograph and had brick-colored freckles. Have you got brick-colored freckles?”

      “Stand up and see.”

      “No, SIR!—that is, ma'am. Too much risk.”

      “Risk! Of what?”

      “Freckles. I don't like freckles. Not on YOUR voice, anyway.”

      “On my VOICE? Are you—”

      “Of course I am—a little. Any one is who stays down here more than a year. But that about the voice and the freckles was sane enough. What I'm trying to say—and you might know it without a diagram—is that, from your voice, you ought to be all that a man dreams of when—well, when he hasn't seen a real American girl for an eternity. Now I can sit here and dream of you as the loveliest princess that ever came and went and left a memory of gold and blue in the heart of—”

      “I'm not gold and blue!”

      “Of course you're not. But your speech is. I'll be wise, and content myself with that. One look might pull down, In irrevocable ruin, all the lovely fabric of my dream. By the way, are you a Cookie?”

      “A WHAT?”

      “Cookie. Tourist. No, of course you're not. No tour would be imbecile enough to touch here. The question is: How did you get here?”

      “Ah, that's my secret.”

      “Or, rather, are you here at all? Perhaps you're just a figment of the overstrained ear. And if I undertook to look, there wouldn't be anything there at all.”

      “Of course, if you don't believe in me, I'll fly away on a sunbeam.”

      “Oh, please! Don't say that! I'm doing my best.”

      So panic-stricken was the appeal that she laughed again, in spite of herself.

      “Ah, that's better! Now, come, be honest with me. You're not pretty, are you?”

      “Me? I'm as lovely as the dawn.”

      “So far, so good. And have you got long golden—that is to say, silken hair that floats almost to your knees?”

      “Certainly,” she replied, with spirit.

      “Is it plentiful enough so that you could spare a little?”

      “Are you asking me for a lock of my hair?” she queried, on a note of mirth. “For a stranger, you go fast.”

      “No; oh, no!” he protested. “Nothing so familiar. I'm offering you a bribe for conversation at the price of, say, five hairs, if you can sacrifice so many.”

      “It sounds delightfully like voodoo,” she observed. “What must I do with them?”

      “First, catch your hair. Well up toward the head, please. Now pull it out. One, two, three—yank!”

      “Ouch!” said the voice above.

      “Do it again. Now have you got two?”

      “Yes.”

      “Knot them together.”

      There was a period of silence.

      “It's very difficult,” complained the girl.

      “Because you're doing it in silence. There must be sprightly conversation or the charm won't work. Talk!”

      “What about?”

      “Tell me who you thought I was when you said, 'Boo!' at me.”

      “A goose.”

      “A—a GOOSE! Why—what—”

      “Doesn't one proverbially say 'Boo!' to a goose?” she remarked demurely.

      “If one has the courage. Now, I haven't. I'm shy.”

      “Shy! You?” Again the delicious trill of her mirth rang in his ears. “I should imagine that to be the least of your troubles.”

      “No! Truly.” There was real and anxious earnestness in his assurance. “It's because I don't see you. If I were face to face with you, I'd stammer and get red and make a regular imbecile of myself. Another reason why I stick down here and decline to yield to temptation.”

      “O wise young man! ARE you young? Ouch!”

      “Reasonably. Was that the last hair?”

      “Positively! I'm scalped. You're a red Indian.”

      “Tie it on. Now, fasten a hairpin on the end and let it down. All right. I've got it. Wait!” The fragile line of communication twitched for a moment. “Haul, now. Gently!”

      Up came the thread, and, as its burden rose over the face of the rock, the girl gave a little cry of delight:—

      “How exquisite! Orchids, aren't they?”

      “Yes, the golden-brown bee orchid. Just your coloring.”

      “So it is. How do you know?” she asked, startled.

      “From the hair. And your eyes have gold flashes in the brown when the sun touches them.”

      “Your wits are YOUR eyes. But where do you get such orchids?”

      “From my little private garden underneath the rock.”

      “Life will be a dull and dreary round unless I see that garden.”

      “No! I say! Wait! Really, now, Miss—er—” There was panic in the protest.

      “Oh, don't be afraid. I'm only playing with your fears. One look at you as you chased your absurd spectacles was enough to satisfy my curiosity. Go in peace, startled fawn that you are.”

      “Go nothing! I'm not going. Neither are you, I hope, until you've told me lots more about yourself.”

      “All that for a spray of orchids?”

      “But they are quite rare ones.”

      “And very lovely.”

      The girl mused, and a sudden impulse seized her to take the unseen acquaintance at his word and free