"Are you willing to take her on, Phil?" I asked. "I believe it's been
done; Epicurus had a female pupil or two."
"I have taken her on," Phil replied, quite without resentment. "Hadn't
you noticed it?"
"Yes," I said; "only, it's the other way round."
"I've been appropriated, is that it?"
"Yes; by Susan. We all have, Phil. That vampire child is simply draining
us, my dear fellow."
"All right," said Phil, after a second's pause, "if she's a _spiritual_
vampire, so much the better. Only, she'll need a firm hand. We must give
her suck at regular hours; draw up a plan. You can tackle the languages,
if you like--aesthetics, and all that. I'll pin her down to math and
logic--teach her to _think_ straight. We can safely leave her to pick up
history and sociology and such things for herself. You've a middling
good library, and she'll browse."
"Oh, she'll browse! She's browsing now."
"Poetry?" demanded Phil, suspicion in his tone, anxiety in his eyes.
"If she runs amuck with poetry too soon, there's no hope for her. She'll
get to taking sensations for ideas, and that's fatal. A mind like
Susan's----"
What further he said I missed; a distant tinkle from the front-door bell
had distracted me.
It was Maltby Phar. He came out to us on the garden terrace, unexpected
and unannounced.
"Whether you like it or not," he sighed luxuriously, "I'm here for a
week. How's the great experiment--eh? Am I too late for the bust-up?"
Then he nodded to Phil. "How are you, Mr. Farmer? Delighted to meet an
old adversary! Shall it be swords or pistols this time? Or clubs? But I
warn you, I'm no fit foe; I'm soft. Making up our mammoth Christmas
Number in July always unnerves me. By the time I had looked over a dozen
designs for our cover this morning and found Gaspar, Melchior, and
Balthazar in every one of them, mounted on fancy camels, and heading for
an exaggerated star in the right upper dark-blue corner, I succumbed to
heat and profanity, turned 'em all face downward, shuffled 'em, grabbed
one at random, and then fled for solace! Solace," he added, dropping
into a wicker armchair, "can begin, if you like, by taking a cool,
mellow, liquid form."