The Weak-Eyed Bat

The disembodied voice was floating out of the windows of the cottage between the Littles’ and the Frosts’. The most that could be said for the voice was that it was full of enthusiasm.

Miss Nora Shane heard it and was disposed to be critical. She set her campstool and easel on the ground, put her hand to her mouth, and yelled: “Oh, dry up! Dry up!”

She regretted it almost instantly. The voice certainly dried up but a face appeared at one of the back windows of the cottage. The face was better than the voice. It was, in fact, quite ingratiating except for a quarter-inch stubble of beard.

“Hello,” the face said. “Dry up yourself.”

It was one of those remarks to which a reply was impossible without loss of dignity, so Nora picked up her campstool and prepared to retreat. The situation would have been saved if the face hadn’t added:

“This is my own property. There’s no law against singing on your own property.”

“Perhaps not,” Nora conceded coldly. “Sing on your own property by all means, but see that your singing doesn’t carry over on to my property.”

“Once these liquid notes leave my larynx I disclaim all responsibility for where they land,” the face replied with equal coldness. “Besides, your left foot is three inches over on my property and the rest of you is on the Frosts’ property. So far as I can see you have no say in the matter.”

The only retort Nora could think of was, “Nuts!” so she said that. It was very weak. Even the young man at the window thought it was very weak. He smiled and said:

“You sound hungry. I’m just frying some bacon and eggs. Would you like some?”

Nora’s voice was frigid. “No, indeed, thank you.”

“Newly laid eggs and sizzling hot bacon,” the young man continued, “from the chicken and the pig respectively. You’d better come in out of the sun. Your nose is sunburned.”

The face disappeared from the window and in a minute its owner had opened the back door of the cottage and was standing on the screened veranda. He was extremely tall and thin. He wore a pair of baggy grey flannels and a blue denim shirt. His black hair was lightly touched with grey.

“I never sunburn,” Nora said.

The man gazed at her in reproof. “The beaches are strewn yearly with the crisp corpses of those who never sunburn. I think you could use some breakfast.”

From the window issued a small puff of smoke followed by a larger puff. Pretty soon it was billowing out in vast clouds, filling the air with the odor of burned bacon.

“Fire!” Nora shouted.

In an instant she was leaping toward the kitchen. The stove was shrouded in smoke. She grabbed a towel from the rack, draped it over the handle of the iron frying pan containing what had been bacon, and carried it outside. She was coughing and spluttering and the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

“Don’t just stand there!” she yelled. “Do something!”

She dashed back into the kitchen, turned off the stove, and began sopping up the spilled grease with another towel.

The tall young man was staring at her admiringly. “Gosh,” he said.

The smoke gradually swept out of the window and disappeared into the thin clear air.

“Gosh,” he said again. “Typhoon O’Grady in person. You are Irish, aren’t you?”

Nora sank weakly into a chair. “Is that all you have to say to someone who saved you from being burned alive? I’d like another towel, please. I’m covered with grease.”

“Sorry,” he said with an apologetic smile. “I’m rather short of towels. Would my shirt do?” No, the shirt would not do. Nora did the best she could with her handkerchief.

“Glad you dropped in,” he said. “My name is Prye, Dr. Paul Prye.”

“Is it?” Nora said.

“What’s — I mean, haven’t you got a name?”

“Certainly. They call me little Mary Smith. You remember little Mary Smith—”

“The name is still Paul Prye.”

“Honestly?”

He was very sad. “Sorry, but there it is.”

Nora looked sympathetic. “You can’t help it, I guess. I’m Nora Shane.”

“That’s nice.”

“It’s all right.”

The conversation died temporarily.

“Sorry about the breakfast,” Prye said finally. “But how was I to know that the instant I turned my back there’d be spontaneous combustion? No one knows these things.”

“Have you any eggs left?” Nora asked. “I’m pretty good at scrambled eggs.”

Prye produced a carton of eggs from the icebox.

“And the butter please?”

“Butter,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Butter. I can’t definitely remember buying any butter but I feel sure I couldn’t have forgotten.”

Even without butter the breakfast was a success. The Muskoka air has a pronounced effect on the appetite, and since this was Prye’s first visit in two years, he ate largely.

Nora nibbled and watched. Although she spent her summers in ascetic solitude transferring nature to canvas, it was pleasant to know that the rest of the summer needn’t be completely ascetic. Prye was, she thought, about thirty-four. Given the attentions of a barber and a valet he might be quite distinguished-looking.

She lit a cigarette over her coffee and said: “Are you a real doctor? I mean, not divine or philosophic?”