AUGUST FIRST by MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN ANDREWS and ROY IRVING MURRAY Illustrated by A. I. Keller [Frontispiece: "She--that's it--that's the gist of it--fool that I am."] New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1915 Copyright, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons Published March, 1915 AUGUST FIRST "Whee!" The long fingers pulled at the clerical collar as if they might tear it away. The alert figure swung across the room to the one window not wide open and the man pushed up the three inches possible. "Whee!" he brought out again, boyishly, and thrust away the dusty vines that hung against the opening from the stone walls of the parish house close by. He gasped; looked about as if in desperate need of relief; struck back the damp hair from his face. The heat was insufferable. In the west black-gray clouds rolled up like blankets, shutting out heaven and air; low thunder growled; at five o'clock of a midsummer afternoon it was almost dark; a storm was coming fast, and coolness would come with it, but in the meantime it was hard for a man who felt heat intensely just to get breath. His eyes stared at the open door of the room, down the corridor which led to the room, which turned and led by another open door to the street. "If they're coming, why don't they come and get it over?" he murmured to himself; he was stifling--it was actual suffering.