Not a bit intimidated, Harold looked him straight in the face. “If you want to know what I did it for I'll tell you--I did it because I'm tired of the lonely life here. You haven't any more interest in me, Ted, than in a stick of wood; so I'm going to take things into my own hands now and begin to enjoy life in my own way. This little house is as much mine as yours, and I mean to have my turn this summer. I didn't like your friends last year, and took myself off. If you don't like mine this year you can do the same thing.” The role was such a new one for Harold to play that Ted stood utterly nonplussed. That Harold should deliberately assert himself in this way was such an unprecedented performance that he knew not what to say.