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Reves v. Ernst & Young (494 U.S. 56)/Opinion of the Court

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the question whether certain demand notes issued by the Farmers Cooperative of Arkansas and Oklahoma (Co-Op) are "securities" within the meaning of § 3(a)(10) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. We conclude that they are.

I
The Co-Op is an agricultural cooperative that, at the time relevant here, had approximately 23,000 members. In order to raise money to support its general business operations, the Co-Op sold promissory notes payable on demand by the holder. Although the notes were uncollateralized and uninsured, they paid a variable rate of interest that was adjusted [p59] monthly to keep it higher than the rate paid by local financial institutions. The Co-Op offered the notes to both members and nonmembers, marketing the scheme as an "Investment Program." Advertisements for the notes, which appeared in each Co-Op newsletter, read in part: "YOUR CO-OP has more than $11,000,000 in assets to stand behind your investments. The Investment is not Federal [sic] insured but it is Safe  Secure  and available when you need it." App. 5 (ellipses in original). Despite these assurances, the Co-Op filed for bankruptcy in 1984. At the time of the filing, over 1,600 people held notes worth a total of $10 million.

After the Co-Op filed for bankruptcy, petitioners, a class of holders of the notes, filed suit against Arthur Young & Co., the firm that had audited the Co-Op's financial statements (and the predecessor to respondent Ernst & Young). Petitioners alleged, inter alia, that Arthur Young had intentionally failed to follow generally accepted accounting principles in its audit, specifically with respect to the valuation of one of the Co-Op's major assets, a gasohol plant. Petitioners claimed that Arthur Young violated these principles in an effort to inflate the assets and net worth of the Co-Op. Petitioners maintained that, had Arthur Young properly treated the plant in its audits, they would not have purchased demand notes because the Co-Op's insolvency would have been apparent. On the basis of these allegations, petitioners claimed that Arthur Young had violated the antifraud provisions of the 1934 Act as well as Arkansas' securities laws.

Petitioners prevailed at trial on both their federal and state claims, receiving a $6.1 million judgment. Arthur Young appealed, claiming that the demand notes were not "securities" under either the 1934 Act or Arkansas law, and that the statutes' antifraud provisions therefore did not apply. A panel of the Eighth Circuit, agreeing with Arthur Young on both the state and federal issues, reversed. Arthur Young & Co. v. Reves, 856 F.2d 52 (1988). We granted certiorari to address [p60] the federal issue, 490 U.S. 1105 (1989), and now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

A
This case requires us to decide whether the note issued by the Co-Op is a "security" within the meaning of the 1934 Act. Section 3(a)(10) of that Act is our starting point:

"The term 'security' means any note, stock, treasury stock, bond, debenture, certificate of interest or participation in any profit-sharing agreement or in any oil, gas, or other mineral royalty or lease, any collateral-trust certificate, preorganization certificate or subscription, transferable share, investment contract, voting-trust certificate, certificate of deposit, for a security, any put, call, straddle, option, or privilege on any security, certificate of deposit, or group or index of securities (including any interest therein or based on the value thereof), or any put, call, straddle, option, or privilege entered into on a national securities exchange relating to foreign currency, or in general, any instrument commonly known as a 'security'; or any certificate of interest or participation in, temporary or interim certificate for, receipt for, or warrant or right to subscribe to or purchase, any of the foregoing; but shall not include currency or any note, draft, bill of exchange, or banker's acceptance which has a maturity at the time of issuance of not exceeding nine months, exclusive of days of grace, or any renewal thereof the maturity of which is likewise limited." 48 Stat. 884, as amended, 15 U.S.C. § 78c(a)(10).

The fundamental purpose undergirding the Securities Acts is "to eliminate serious abuses in a largely unregulated securities market." United Housing Foundation, Inc. v. Forman, 421 U.S. 837, 849 (1975). In defining the scope of the market that it wished to regulate, Congress painted with a broad brush. It recognized the virtually limitless scope of [p61] human ingenuity, especially in the creation of "countless and variable schemes devised by those who seek the use of the money of others on the promise of profits," SEC v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293, 299 (1946), and determined that the best way to achieve its goal of protecting investors was "to define 'the term "security" in sufficiently broad and general terms so as to include within that definition the many types of instruments that in our commercial world fall within the ordinary concept of a security. Forman, supra, at 847–848 (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 85, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 11 (1933)). Congress therefore did not attempt precisely to cabin the scope of the Securities Acts. Rather, it enacted a definition of "security" sufficiently broad to encompass virtually any instrument that might be sold as an investment.

Congress did not, however, "intend to provide a broad federal remedy for all fraud." Marine Bank v. Weaver, 455 U.S. 551, 556 (1982). Accordingly, "[t]he task has fallen to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the body charged with administering the Securities Acts, and ultimately to the federal courts to decide which of the myriad financial transactions in our society come within the coverage of these statutes." Forman, supra, at 848. In discharging our duty, we are not bound by legal formalisms, but instead take account of the economics of the transaction under investigation. See, e.g., Tcherepnin v. Knight, 389 U.S. 332, 336 (1967) (in interpreting the term "security," "form should be disregarded for substance and the emphasis should be on economic reality"). Congress' purpose in enacting the securities laws was to regulate investments, in whatever form they are made and by whatever name they are called.

[p62] A commitment to an examination of the economic realities of a transaction does not necessarily entail a case-by-case analysis of every instrument, however. Some instruments are obviously within the class Congress intended to regulate because they are by their nature investments. In Landreth Timber Co. v. Landreth, 471 U.S. 681 (1985), we held that an instrument bearing the name "stock" that, among other things, is negotiable, offers the possibility of capital appreciation, and carries the right to dividends contingent on the profits of a business enterprise is plainly within the class of instruments Congress intended the securities laws to cover. Landreth Timber does not signify a lack of concern with economic reality; rather, it signals a recognition that stock is, as a practical matter, always an investment if it has the economic characteristics traditionally associated with stock. Even if sparse exceptions to this generalization can be found, the public perception of common stock as the paradigm of a security suggests that stock, in whatever context it is sold, should be treated as within the ambit of the Acts. Id., at 687, 693.

We made clear in Landreth Timber that stock was a special case, explicitly limiting our holding to that sort of instrument. Id., at 694. Although we refused finally to rule out a similar per se rule for notes, we intimated that such a rule would be unjustified. Unlike "stock," we said, note' may now be viewed as a relatively broad term that encompasses instruments with widely varying characteristics, depending on whether issued in a consumer context, as commercial paper, or in some other investment context." Ibid. (citing Securities Industry Assn. v. Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, 468 U.S. 137, 149–153 (1984)). While common stock is the quintessence of a security, Landreth Timber, supra, at 693, and investors therefore justifiably assume that a sale of stock is covered by the Securities Acts, the same simply cannot be said of notes, which are used in a variety of settings, not all of which involve investments. Thus, [p63] the phrase "any note" should not be interpreted to mean literally "any note," but must be understood against the backdrop of what Congress was attempting to accomplish in enacting the Securities Acts.

Because the Landreth Timber formula cannot sensibly be applied to notes, some other principle must be developed to define the term "note." A majority of the Courts of Appeals that have considered the issue have adopted, in varying forms, "investment versus commercial" approaches that distinguish, on the basis of all of the circumstances surrounding the transactions, notes issued in an investment context (which are "securities") from notes issued in a commercial or consumer context (which are not). See, e.g., Futura Development Corp. v. Centex Corp., 761 F.2d 33, 40–41 (CA1 1985); ''McClure v. First Nat. Bank of Lubbock, Texas, 497 F.2d 490, 492–494 (CA5 1974); Hunssinger v. Rockford Business Credits, Inc., 745 F.2d 484, 488 (CA7 1984); Holloway v. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co.'', 879 F.2d 772, 778–779 (CA10 1989), cert. pending No. 89-532.

The Second Circuit's "family resemblance" approach begins with a presumption that any note with a term of more than nine months is a "security." See, e.g., ''Exchange Nat. Bank of Chicago v. Touche Ross & Co.'', 544 F.2d 1126, 1137 (CA2 1976). Recognizing that not all notes are securities, however, the Second Circuit has also devised a list of notes that it has decided are obviously not securities. Accordingly, [p64] the "family resemblance" test permits an issuer to rebut the presumption that a note is a security if it can show that the note in question "bear[s] a strong family resemblance" to an item on the judicially crafted list of exceptions, id., at 1137–1138, or convinces the court to add a new instrument to the list, see, e.g., Chemical Bank v. Arthur Andersen & Co., 726 F.2d 930, 939 (CA2 1984).

In contrast, the Eighth and District of Columbia Circuits apply the test we created in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293 (1946), to determine whether an instrument is an "investment contract" to the determination whether an instrument is a "note." Under this test, a note is a security only if it evidences "(1) an investment; (2) in a common enterprise; (3) with a reasonable expectation of profits; (4) to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others." 856 F.2d, at 54 (case below). Accord, Baurer v. Planning Group, Inc., 215 U.S. App. D.C. 384, 391–393, 669 F.2d 770, 777–779 (1981). See also Underhill v. Royal, 769 F.2d 1426, 1431 (CA9 1985) (setting forth what it terms a "risk capital" approach that is virtually identical to the Howey test).

We reject the approaches of those courts that have applied the Howey test to notes; Howey provides a mechanism for determining whether an instrument is an "investment contract." The demand notes here may well not be "investment contracts," but that does not mean they are not "notes." To hold that a "note" is not a "security" unless it meets a test designed for an entirely different variety of instrument "would make the Acts' enumeration of many types of instruments superfluous," Landreth Timber, 471 U.S., at 692, and would be inconsistent with Congress' intent to regulate the entire body of instruments sold as investments, see supra, at 60–62.

The other two contenders—the "family resemblance" and "investment versus commercial" tests—are really two ways of formulating the same general approach. Because we [p65] think the "family resemblance" test provides a more promising framework for analysis, however, we adopt it. The test begins with the language of the statute; because the Securities Acts define "security" to include "any note," we begin with a presumption that every note is a security. We nonetheless recognize that this presumption cannot be irrebuttable. As we have said, supra, at 61, Congress was concerned with regulating the investment market, not with creating a general federal cause of action for fraud. In an attempt to give more content to that dividing line, the Second Circuit has identified a list of instruments commonly denominated "notes" that nonetheless fall without the "security" category. See ''Exchange Nat. Bank, supra, at 1138 (types of notes that are not "securities" include "the note delivered in consumer financing, the note secured by a mortgage on a home, the short-term note secured by a lien on a small business or some of its assets, the note evidencing a 'character' loan to a bank customer, short-term notes secured by an assignment of accounts receivable, or a note which simply formalizes an open-account debt incurred in the ordinary course of business (particularly if, as in the case of the customer of a broker, it is collateralized)"); Chemical Bank, supra'', at 939 (adding to list "notes evidencing loans by commercial banks for current operations").

We agree that the items identified by the Second Circuit are not properly viewed as "securities." More guidance, though, is needed. It is impossible to make any meaningful inquiry into whether an instrument bears a "resemblance" to [p66] one of the instruments identified by the Second Circuit without specifying what it is about those instruments that makes them non-"securities." Moreover, as the Second Circuit itself has noted, its list is "not graven in stone," 726 F.2d, at 939, and is therefore capable of expansion. Thus, some standards must be developed for determining when an item should be added to the list.

An examination of the list itself makes clear what those standards should be. In creating its list, the Second Circuit was applying the same factors that this Court has held apply in deciding whether a transaction involves a "security." First, we examine the transaction to assess the motivations that would prompt a reasonable seller and buyer to enter into it. If the seller's purpose is to raise money for the general use of a business enterprise or to finance substantial investments and the buyer is interested primarily in the profit the note is expected to generate, the instrument is likely to be a "security." If the note is exchanged to facilitate the purchase and sale of a minor asset or consumer good, to correct for the seller's cash-flow difficulties, or to advance some other commercial or consumer purpose, on the other hand, the note is less sensibly described as a "security." See, e.g., Forman, 421 U.S., at 851 (share of "stock" carrying a right to subsidized housing not a security because "the inducement to purchase was solely to acquire subsidized low-cost living space; it was not to invest for profit"). Second, we examine the "plan of distribution" of the instrument, SEC v. C.M. Joiner Leasing Corp., 320 U.S. 344, 353 (1943), to determine whether it is an instrument in which there is "common trading for speculation or investment," id., at 351. Third, we examine the reasonable expectations of the investing public: The Court will consider instruments to be "securities" on the basis of such public expectations, even where an economic analysis of the circumstances of the particular transaction might suggest that the instruments are not "securities" as used in that transaction. Compare Landreth Timber, 471 [p67] U.S., at 687, 693 (relying on public expectations in holding that common stock is always a security), with id., at 697–700 (, J., dissenting) (arguing that sale of business to single informed purchaser through stock is not within the purview of the Acts under the economic reality test). See also Forman, supra, at 851. Finally, we examine whether some factor such as the existence of another regulatory scheme significantly reduces the risk of the instrument, thereby rendering application of the Securities Acts unnecessary. See, e.g., Marine Bank, 455 U.S., at 557–559, and n. 7.

We conclude, then, that in determining whether an instrument denominated a "note" is a "security," courts are to apply the version of the "family resemblance" test that we have articulated here: A note is presumed to be a "security," and that presumption may be rebutted only by a showing that the note bears a strong resemblance (in terms of the four factors we have identified) to one of the enumerated categories of instrument. If an instrument is not sufficiently similar to an item on the list, the decision whether another category should be added is to be made by examining the same factors.

B
Applying the family resemblance approach to this case, we have little difficulty in concluding that the notes at issue here are "securities." Ernst & Young admits that "a demand note does not closely resemble any of the Second Circuit's family resemblance examples." Brief for Respondent 43. Nor does an examination of the four factors we have identified as being relevant to our inquiry suggest that the demand notes here are not "securities" despite their lack of similarity to any of the enumerated categories. The Co-Op sold the notes in an effort to raise capital for its general business operations, and purchasers bought them in order to earn a profit [p68] in the form of interest. Indeed, one of the primary inducements offered purchasers was an interest rate constantly revised to keep it slightly above the rate paid by local banks and savings and loans. From both sides, then, the transaction is most naturally conceived as an investment in a business enterprise rather than as a purely commercial or consumer transaction.

As to the plan of distribution, the Co-Op offered the notes over an extended period to its 23,000 members, as well as to nonmembers, and more than 1,600 people held notes when the Co-Op filed for bankruptcy. To be sure, the notes were not traded on an exchange. They were, however, offered and sold to a broad segment of the public, and that is all we have held to be necessary to establish the requisite "common trading" in an instrument. See, e.g., Landreth Timber, supra (stock of closely held corporation not traded on any exchange held to be a "security"); Tcherepnin, 389 U.S., at 337 (nonnegotiable but transferable "withdrawable capital shares" in savings and loan association held to be a "security"); Howey, 328 U.S., at 295 (units of citrus grove and maintenance contract "securities" although not traded on exchange).

The third factor—the public's reasonable perceptions—also supports a finding that the notes in this case are "securities." We have consistently identified the fundamental essence of a [p69] "security" to be its character as an "investment." See supra, at 61, 65. The advertisements for the notes here characterized them as "investments," see supra, at 59, and there were no countervailing factors that would have led a reasonable person to question this characterization. In these circumstances, it would be reasonable for a prospective purchaser to take the Co-Op at its word.

Finally, we find no risk-reducing factor to suggest that these instruments are not in fact securities. The notes are uncollateralized and uninsured. Moreover, unlike the certificates of deposit in Marine Bank, supra, at 557–558, which were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and subject to substantial regulation under the federal banking laws, and unlike the pension plan in Teamsters v. Daniel, 439 U.S. 551, 569–570 (1979), which was comprehensively regulated under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 829, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq. (1982 ed.), the notes here would escape federal regulation entirely if the Acts were held not to apply.

The court below found that "[t]he demand nature of the notes is very uncharacteristic of a security," 856 F.2d, at 54, on the theory that the virtually instant liquidity associated with demand notes is inconsistent with the risk ordinarily associated with "securities." This argument is unpersuasive. Common stock traded on a national exchange is the paradigm of a security, and it is as readily convertible into cash as is a demand note. The same is true of publicly traded corporate bonds, debentures, and any number of other instruments that are plainly within the purview of the Acts. The demand feature of a note does permit a holder to eliminate risk quickly by making a demand, but just as with publicly traded stock, the liquidity of the instrument does not eliminate risk altogether. Indeed, publicly traded stock is even more readily liquid than are demand notes, in that a demand only eliminates risk when, and if, payment is made, whereas the [p70] sale of a share of stock through a national exchange and the receipt of the proceeds usually occur simultaneously.

We therefore hold that the notes at issue here are within the term "note" in § 3(a)(10).

III
Relying on the exception in the statute for "any note ... which has a maturity at the time of issuance of not exceeding nine months," 15 U.S.C. § 78c(a)(10), respondent contends that the notes here are not "securities," even if they would otherwise qualify. Respondent cites Arkansas cases standing for the proposition that, in the context of the state statute of limitations, "[a] note payable on demand is due immediately." See, e.g., McMahon v. O'Keefe, 213 Ark. 105, 106, 209 S.W.2d 449, 450 (1948) (statute of limitations is triggered by the date of issuance rather than by date of first demand). Respondent concludes from this rule that the "maturity" of a demand note within the meaning of § 3(a)(10) is immediate, which is, of course, less than nine months. Respondent therefore contends that the notes fall within the plain words of the exclusion and are thus not "securities."

Petitioners counter that the "plain words" of the exclusion should not govern. Petitioners cite the legislative history of a similar provision of the 1933 Act, 48 Stat. 76, 15 U.S.C. § 77c(a)(3), for the proposition that the purpose of the exclusion is to except from the coverage of the Acts only commercial paper—short-term, high quality instruments issued to fund current operations and sold only to highly sophisticated investors. See S. Rep. No. 47, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 3–4 (1933); H.R. Rep. No. 85, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 15 (1933). Petitioners also emphasize that this Court has repeatedly held (see supra, at 60–63) that the plain words of the definition of a "security" are not dispositive, and that we consider the economic reality of the transaction to determine whether Congress intended the Securities Acts to apply. Petitioners therefore argue, with some force, that reading the exception [p71] for short-term notes to exclude from the Acts' coverage investment notes of less than nine months' duration would be inconsistent with Congress' evident desire to permit the SEC and the courts flexibility to ensure that the Acts are not manipulated to investors' detriment. If petitioners are correct that the exclusion is intended to cover only commercial paper, these notes, which were sold in a large scale offering to unsophisticated members of the public, plainly should not fall within the exclusion.

We need not decide, however, whether petitioners' interpretation of the exception is correct, for we conclude that even if we give literal effect to the exception, the notes do not fall within its terms.

Respondent's contention that the demand notes fall within the "plain words" of the statute rests entirely upon the premise that Arkansas' statute of limitations for suits to collect demand notes is determinative of the "maturity" of the notes, as that term is used in the federal Securities Acts. The "maturity" of the notes, however, is a question of federal law. To regard States' statutes of limitations law as controlling the scope of the Securities Acts would be to hold that a particular instrument is a "security" under the 1934 Act in some States, but that the same instrument is not a "security" in others. Compare McMahon, supra, at 106, 209 S.W.2d 449 (statute runs from date of note), with 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5525(7) (1988) (statute runs "from the later of either demand or any payment of principal of or interest on the instrument"). We are unpersuaded that Congress intended the Securities Acts to apply differently to the same transactions depending on the accident of which State's law happens to apply.

The 's argument in partial dissent is but a more artful statement of respondent's contention, and it suffers from the same defect. The begins by defining "maturity" to mean the time when a note becomes due. Post, at 77 (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 1170 (3d ed. 1933)). Because a demand note is "immediately 'due' such [p72] that an action could be brought at any time without any other demand than the suit," post, at 77, the concludes that a demand note is due immediately for purposes of the federal securities laws. Even if the is correct that the "maturity" of a note corresponds to the time at which it "becomes due," the authority he cites for the proposition that, as a matter of federal law, a demand note "becomes due" immediately (as opposed to when demand is  made or expected to be made) is no more dispositive than is Arkansas case law. The 's primary source of authority is a treatise regarding the state law of negotiable instruments, particularly the Uniform Negotiable Instruments Law. See M. Bigelow, Law of Bills, Notes, and Checks v–vii (3d ed. W. Lile rev. 1928). The quotation upon which the relies is concerned with articulating the general state-law rule regarding when suit may be filed. The only other authority the cites makes plain that state-law rules governing when a demand note becomes due are significant only in that they control the date on which statutes of limitation begins to run and whether demand must precede suit. See 8 C.J. Bills and Notes § 602, p. 406 (1916). Indeed, the treatise suggests that States were no more unanimous on those questions in 1933 than they are now. Ibid. In short, the dissent adds nothing to respondent's argument other than additional authority for what "maturity" means in certain state-law contexts. The dissent provides no argument for its implicit, but essential, premise that state rules concerning the proper method of collecting a debt control the resolution of the federal question before us.

Neither the law of Arkansas nor that of any other State provides an answer to the federal question, and as a matter of federal law, the words of the statute are far from "plain" with regard to whether demand notes fall within the exclusion. If it is plausible to regard a demand note as having an immediate maturity because demand could be made immediately, it is also plausible to regard the maturity of a demand note as [p73] being in excess of nine months because demand could be made many years or decades into the future. Given this ambiguity, the exclusion must be interpreted in accordance with its purpose. As we have said, we will assume for argument's sake that petitioners are incorrect in their view that the exclusion is intended to exempt only commercial paper. Respondent presents no competing view to explain why Congress would have enacted respondent's version of the exclusion, however, and the only theory that we can imagine that would support respondent's interpretation is that Congress intended to create a bright-line rule exempting from the 1934 Act's coverage all notes of less than nine months' duration, because short-term notes are, as a general rule, sufficiently safe that the Securities Acts need not apply. As we have said, however, demand notes do not necessarily have short terms. In light of Congress' broader purpose in the Acts of ensuring that investments of all descriptions be regulated to prevent fraud and abuse, we interpret the exception not to cover the demand notes at issue here. Although the result might be different if the design of the transaction suggested that both parties contemplated that demand would be made within the statutory period, that is not the case before us.

IV
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the demand notes at issue here fall under the "note" category of instruments that are "securities" under the 1933 and 1934 Acts. We also conclude that, even under respondent's preferred approach to § 3(a)(10)'s exclusion for short-term notes, these demand notes do not fall within the exclusion. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.


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Reves v. Ernst & Young (494 U.S. 56)/Concurrence Stevens

, concurring.

While I join the Court's opinion, an important additional consideration supports my conclusion that these notes are securities [p74] notwithstanding the statute's exclusion for currency and commercial paper that has a maturity of no more than nine months. See 15 U.S.C. § 78c(a)(10) (§ 3(a)(10) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934). The Courts of Appeals have been unanimous in rejecting a literal reading of that exclusion. They have instead concluded that "when Congress spoke of notes with a maturity not exceeding nine months, it meant commercial paper, not investment securities." Sanders v. John Nuveen & Co., 463 F.2d 1075, 1080 (CA7), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1009 (1972). This view was first set out in an opinion by Judge Sprecher, and soon thereafter endorsed by Chief Judge Friendly. ''Zeller v. Bogue Electric Mfg. Corp.'', 476 F.2d 795, 800 (CA2), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 908 (1973). Others have adopted the same position since. See, e.g., ''McClure v. First Nat. Bank of Lubbock, Texas'', 497 F.2d 490, 494–495 (CA5 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 930 (1975); Holloway v. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co., 879 F.2d 772, 778 (CA10 1989); Baurer v. Planning Group, Inc., 215 U.S. App. D.C. 384, 389–391, 669 F.2d 770, 775–777 (1981).

In my view such a settled construction of an important federal statute should not be disturbed unless and until Congress so decides. "[A]fter a statute has been construed, either by this Court or by a consistent course of decision by other federal judges and agencies, it acquires a meaning that should be as clear as if the judicial gloss had been drafted by the Congress itself." Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, 482 U.S. 220, 268 (1987) (, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); see also Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co. v. Schwalb, 493 U.S. 40, 51 (1989) (, J., concurring in judgment). What I have said before of taxation applies equally to securities regulation: "there is a strong interest in enabling" those affected "to predict the legal consequences of their proposed actions, and there is an even stronger general interest in ensuring that the responsibility for making changes in settled law rests squarely on [p75] the shoulders of Congress." Commissioner v. Fink, 483 U.S. 89, 101 (1987) (dissenting opinion). Past errors may in rare cases be "sufficiently blatant" to overcome the strong presumption of continued validity that adheres in the judicial interpretation of a statute, but this is not such a case. Id., at 103 (quoting Square D Co. v. Niagara Frontier Tariff Bureau, Inc., 476 U.S. 409, 424 (1986)).

Indeed, the agreement among the Courts of Appeals is made all the more impressive in this case because it is buttressed by the views of the Securities and Exchange Commission. See Securities Act Release No. 33-4412, 26 Fed. Reg. 9158 (1961) (construing § 3(a)(3) of the Securities Act of 1933, the 1933 Act's counterpart to § 3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act). We have ourselves referred to the exclusion for notes with a maturity not exceeding nine months as an exclusion for "commercial paper." Securities Industry Assn. v. Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, 468 U.S. 137, 150–152 (1984). Perhaps because the restriction of the exclusion to commercial paper is so well established, respondents admit that they did not even argue before the Court of Appeals that their notes were covered by the exclusion. A departure from this reliable consensus would upset the justified expectations of both the legal and investment communities.

Moreover, I am satisfied that the interpretation of the statute expounded by Judge Sprecher and Judge Friendly was entirely correct. As Judge Friendly has observed, the exclusion for short-term notes must be read in light of the prefatory language in § 2 of the 1933 Act and § 3 of the 1934 Act. See ''Exchange Nat. Bank of Chicago v. Touche Ross & Co.'', 544 F.2d 1126, 1131–1132, and nn. 7–10 (CA2 1976). Pursuant to that language, definitions specified by the Acts may not apply if the "context otherwise requires." Marine Bank v. Weaver, 455 U.S. 551, 556, 102 S.Ct. 1220, 1223, 71 L.Ed.2d 409 (1982) (the "broad statutory definition is preceded, however, by the statement that the terms mentioned are not to be considered securities if 'the context otherwise requires ); accord, [p76] Landreth Timber Co. v. Landreth, 471 U.S. 681, 697–698 (1985) (, J., dissenting). The context clause thus permits a judicial construction of the statute which harmonizes the facially rigid terms of the 9-month exclusion with the evident intent of Congress. Exchange Nat. Bank, 544 F.2d, at 1132–1133. The legislative history of § 3(a)(3) of the 1933 Act indicates that the exclusion was intended to cover only commercial paper, and the SEC has so construed it. Sanders, 463 F.2d, at 1079, and nn. 12–13; Zeller, 476 F.2d, at 799–800, and n. 6. As the Courts of Appeals have agreed, there is no apparent reason to construe § 3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act differently. Sanders, 463 F.2d, at 1079–1080, and n. 15; Zeller, 476 F.2d, at 800. See also Comment, The Commercial Paper Market and the Securities Acts, 39 U. Chi. L. Rev. 362, 398 (1972).

For these reasons and those stated in the opinion of the Court, I conclude that the notes issued by respondents are securities within the meaning of the 1934 Act.

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 crously prompt, some of them waiting in San Francisco for weeks so as not to miss the scheduled sailing-date. They departed on the Energon on June 15; and while they were on the sea, on the way to Palgrave Island, Goliah performed another spectacular feat. Germany and France were preparing to fly at each other's throats. Goliah commanded peace. They ignored the command, tacitly agreeing to fight it out on land where it seemed safer for the belligerently inclined. Goliah set the date of June 19 for the cessation of hostile preparations. Both countries mobilized their armies on June 18, and hurled them at the common frontier. And on June 19, Goliah struck. All generals, war-secretaries, and jingo-leaders in the two countries died on that day; and that day two vast armies, undirected, like strayed sheep, walked over each other's frontiers and fraternized. But the great German war lord had escaped—it was learned, afterward, by hiding in the huge safe where were stored the secret archives of his empire. And when he emerged he was a very penitent war lord, and like the Mikado of Japan he was set to work beating his sword-blades into ploughshares and pruning-hooks.


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 But in the escape of the German Emperor was discovered a great significance. The scientists of the world plucked up courage, got back their nerve. One thing was conclusively evident—Goliah's power was not magic. Law still reigned in the universe. Goliah's power had limitations, else had the German Emperor not escaped by secretly hiding in a steel safe. Many learned articles on the subject appeared in the magazines.

The ten scientists arrived back from Palgrave Island on July 6. Heavy platoons of police protected them from the reporters. No, they had not seen Goliah, they said in the one official interview that was vouchsafed; but they had talked with him, and they had seen things. They were not permitted to state definitely all that they had seen and heard, but they could say that the world was about to be revolutionized. Goliah was in the possession of a tremendous discovery that placed all the world at his mercy, and it was a good thing for the world that Goliah was merciful. The ten scientists proceeded directly to Washington on a special train, where, for days, they were closeted with the heads of government, while the nation hung breathless on the outcome.


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 But the outcome was a long time in arriving. From Washington the President issued commands to the masters and leading figures of the nation. Everything was secret. Day by day deputations of bankers, railway lords, captains of industry, and Supreme Court justices arrived; and when they arrived they remained. The weeks dragged on, and then, on August 25, began the famous issuance of proclamations. Congress and the Senate coöperated with the President in this, while the Supreme Court justices gave their sanction and the money lords and the captains of industry agreed. War was declared upon the capitalist masters of the nation. Martial law was declared over the whole United States. The supreme power was vested in the President.

In one day, child-labor in the whole country was abolished. It was done by decree, and the United States was prepared with its army to enforce its decrees. In the same day all women factory workers were dismissed to their homes, and all the sweatshops were closed. "But we cannot make profits!" wailed the petty capitalists. "Fools!" was the retort of Goliah. "As if the meaning of life were


text:
Reves v. Ernst & Young (494 U.S. 56)/Concurrence-dissent Rehnquist

, with whom and  join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I join Part II of the Court's opinion, but dissent from Part III and the statements of the Court's judgment in Parts I and IV. In Part III, the Court holds that these notes were not covered by the statutory exemption for "any note which has a maturity at the time of issuance of not exceeding nine months." Treating demand notes as if they were a recent development in the law of negotiable instruments, the Court says "if it is plausible to regard a demand note as having an immediate maturity because demand could be made immediately, it is also plausible to regard the maturity of a demand note as being in excess of nine months because demand could be made many years or decades into the future. Given this ambiguity, the exclusion must be interpreted in accordance with its purpose." Ante, at 72–73.

[p77] But the terms "note" and "maturity" did not spring full blown from the head of Congress in 1934. Neither are demand notes of recent vintage. "Note" and "maturity" have been terms of art in the legal profession for centuries, and a body of law concerning the characteristics of demand notes, including their maturity, was in existence at the time Congress passed the 1934 Act.

In construing any terms whose meanings are less than plain, we depend on the common understanding of those terms at the time of the statute's creation. See Gilbert v. United States, 370 U.S. 650, 655 (1962) ("[I]n the absence of anything to the contrary it is fair to assume that Congress use[s a] word in [a] statute in its common-law sense"); Roadway Express, Inc. v. Piper, 447 U.S. 752, 759 (1980) (in construing a word in a statute, "we may look to the contemporaneous understanding of the term"); Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 221 U.S. 1, 59 (1911) (common-law meaning "presumed" to have been Congress' intent); see also Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U.S. 575, 583 (1978); United States v. Spencer, 839 F.2d 1341, 1344 (CA9 1988). Contemporaneous editions of legal dictionaries defined "maturity" as "[t]he time when a note becomes due." Black's Law Dictionary 1170 (3d ed. 1933); Cyclopedic Law Dictionary 649 (2d ed. 1922). Pursuant to the dominant consensus in the case law, instruments payable on demand were considered immediately "due" such that an action could be brought at any time without any other demand than the suit. See, e.g., M. Bigelow, Law of Bills, Notes, and Checks § 349, p. 265 (3d ed. W. Lile rev. 1928); 8 C.J., Bills and Notes § 602, p. 406, and n. 83 (1916). According to Bigelow:

"So far as maker and acceptor are concerned, paper payable 'on demand' is due from the moment of its delivery, and payment may be required on any business day, including the day of its issue, within the statute of limitations. In other words, as to these parties the paper is at maturity all the time, and no demand of payment is necessary [p78] before suit thereon." Bigelow, supra, § 349, at 265 (emphasis added; emphasis in original deleted; footnote omitted).

To be sure, demand instruments were considered to have "the peculiar quality of having two maturity dates—one for the purpose of holding to his obligation the party primarily liable (e.g. maker), and the other for enforcing the contracts of parties secondarily liable (e.g. drawer and indorsers)." Bigelow, supra, § 350, at 266 (emphasis omitted). But only the rule of immediate maturity respecting makers of demand notes has any bearing on our examination of the exemption; the language in the Act makes clear that it is the "maturity at time of issuance" with which we are concerned. 15 U.S.C. § 78c(a)(10). Accordingly, in the absence of some compelling indication to the contrary, the maturity date exemption must encompass demand notes because they possess "maturity at the time of issuance of not exceeding nine months."

[p79] Petitioners and the lower court decisions cited by rely, virtually exclusively, on the legislative history of § 3(a)(3) of the 1933 Act for the proposition that the term "any note" in the exemption in § 3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act encompass only notes having the character of short-term "commercial paper" exchanged among sophisticated traders. I am not altogether convinced that the legislative history of § 3(a)(3) supports that interpretation even with respect to the term "any note" in the exemption in § 3(a)(3), and to bodily transpose that legislative history to another statute has little to commend it as a method of statutory construction.

The legislative history of the 1934 Act—under which this case arises—contains nothing which would support a restrictive reading of the exemption in question. Nor does the legislative history of § 3(a)(3) of the 1933 Act support the asserted limited construction of the exemption in § 3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act. Though the two most pertinent sources of congressional commentary on § 3(a)(3)—H.R. Rep. No. 85, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 15 (1933) and S.Rep. No. 47, 73d Cong., 1st Sess., 3–4 (1933)—do suggest an intent to limit § 3(a)(3)'s exemption to short-term commercial paper, the references in those Reports to commercial paper simply did not survive in the language of the enactment. Indeed, the Senate Report stated "[n]otes, drafts, bills of exchange, and bankers' acceptances which are commercial paper and arise out of current commercial, agricultural, or industrial transactions, and which are not intended to be marketed to the public, are exempted" S. Rep. No. 47, supra, at 3–4 (emphasis added). Yet the provision enacted in § 3(a)(3) [p80] of the 1933 Act exempts "[a]ny note, draft, bill of exchange, or banker's acceptance which arises out of a current transaction or the proceeds of which have been or are to be used for current transactions, and which has a maturity at the time of issuance of not exceeding nine months " 15 U.S.C. § 77c(a)(3) (emphasis added).

Such broadening of the language in the enacted version of § 3(a)(3), relative to the prototype from which it sprang, cannot easily be dismissed in interpreting § 3(a)(3). A fortiori, the legislative history's restrictive meaning cannot be imputed to the facially broader language in a different provision of another Act. Although I do not doubt that both the 1933 and 1934 Act exemptions encompass short-term commercial paper, the expansive language in the statutory provisions is strong evidence that, in the end, Congress meant for commercial paper merely to be a subset of a larger class of exempted short-term instruments.

The plausibility of imputing a restrictive reading to § 3(a)(10) from the legislative history of § 3(a)(3) is further weakened by the imperfect analogy between the two provisions in terms of both phraseology and nature. Section 3(a)(10) lacks the cryptic phrase in § 3(a)(3) which qualifies the class of instruments eligible for exemption as those arising "out of current transaction[s] or the proceeds of which have been or are to be used for current transactions " While that passage somehow may strengthen an argument for limiting the exemption in § 3(a)(3) to commercial paper, its absence in § 3(a)(10) conversely militates against placing the same limitation thereon.

The exemption in § 3(a)(3) excepts the short-term instruments it covers solely from the registration requirements of the 1933 Act. The same instruments are not exempted from the 1933 Act's antifraud provisions. Compare 15 U.S.C. § 77c(a)(3) with 15 U.S.C. §§ 77l(2) and 77q(c); see also [p81] Securities Industry Assn. v. Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, 468 U.S. 137, 151 (1984). By contrast, the exemption in § 3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act exempts instruments encompassed thereunder from the entirety of the coverage of the 1934 Act including, conspicuously, the Act's antifraud provisions.

argues that the suggested limited reading of the exemption in § 3(a)(10) of the 1934 Act "harmonizes" the plain terms of that provision with the legislative history of the 1933 Act. Ante, at 76. In his view, such harmony is required by the "context clause" at the beginning of the 1934 Act's general definition of "security." It seems to me, instead, that harmony is called for primarily between § 3(a)(10)'s general definition and its specific exemption. The fairest reading of the exemption in light of the context clause is that the situation described in the exemption—notes with maturities at issue of less than nine months—is one contextual exception Congress especially wanted courts to recognize. Such a reading does not render the context clause superfluous; it merely leaves it to the judiciary to flesh out additional "context clause" exceptions.

also states that we have previously referred to the exemption in § 3(a)(10) as an exclusion for commercial paper. Ante, at 76 (citing Securities Industry Assn., supra, at 150–152). In the Securities Industry Assn. dictum, however, we described the exemption in § 3(a)(10) merely as "encompass[ing]" commercial paper and in no way concluded that the exemption was limited to commercial paper. See 468 U.S., at 150–151. Indeed, in Securities Industry Assn., our purpose in referring to § 3(a)(10) was to assist our determination whether commercial paper was even included in the 73d Congress' use of the words "notes or other securities" in the Glass–Steagall Banking Act of 1933.

In sum, there is no justification for looking beyond the plain terms of § 3(a)(10), save for ascertaining the meaning of "maturity" with respect to demand notes. That inquiry reveals [p82] that the Co-Op's demand notes come within the purview of the section's exemption for short-term securities. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, though on different reasoning.


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 profits! Give up your businesses and your profit-mongering." "But there is nobody to buy our business!" they wailed. "Buy and sell—is that all the meaning life has for you?" replied Goliah. "You have nothing to sell. Turn over your little cut-throating, anarchistic businesses to the government so that they may be rationally organized and operated." And the next day, by decree, the government began taking possession of all factories, shops, mines, ships, railroads, and producing lands.

The nationalization of the means of production and distribution went on apace. Here and there were sceptical capitalists of moment. They were made prisoners and haled to Palgrave Island, and when they returned they always acquiesced in what the government was doing. A little later the journey to Palgrave Island became unnecessary. When objection was made, the reply of the officials was:—"Goliah has spoken"—which was another way of saying, "He must be obeyed."

The captains of industry became heads of departments. It was found that civil engineers, for instance, worked just as well in government employ as, before, they had worked in private employ. It


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 tions? What a fool you were to let me, whom you forced into life thousands of years too soon, grow more powerful than you! Before I am through with all of you petty creatures of the Black Age, you will call me more terrible than your Jehovah! For see what you have called forth from unborn time."

He vanished.

EFORE the startled men could recover from the shock of it, the vibrant, too-new voice went on:

"I am sorry for you, Mundson, because, like you, I need specimens for my experiments. What a splendid specimen you will be!" His laugh was ugly with significance. "Get in, worms!"

Unseen hands cuffed and pushed them into the sun-ship.

Inside, Dr. Mundson stumbled to the control room, white and drawn of face, his great brain seemingly paralyzed by the catastrophe.

"You needn't attempt tricks," went on the voice. "I am watching you both. You cannot even hide your thoughts from me."

And thus began the strange continuation of the journey. Not once, in that wild half-hour's rush over the polar ice clouds, did they see Adam. They saw and heard only the weird signs of his presence: a puffing cigar hanging in midair, a glass of water swinging to unseen lips, a ghostly voice hurling threats and insults at them.

Once the scientist whispered: "Don't cross him; it is useless. John Northwood, you'll have to fight a demigod for your woman!"

Because of the terrific speed of the sun-ship, Northwood could distinguish nothing of the topographical details below. At the end of half-an-hour, the scientist slowed enough to point out a tall range of snow-covered mountains, over which hovered a play of colored lights like the aurora australis.

"Behind those mountains," he said, "is our destination."

LMOST in a moment, the sun-ship had soared over the peaks. Dr. Mundson kept the speed low enough for Northwood to see the splendid view below.

In the giant cup formed by the encircling mountain range was a green valley of tropical luxuriance. Stretches of dense forest swept half up the mountains and filled the valley cup with tangled verdure. In the center, surrounded by a broad field and a narrow ring of Woods, towered a group of buildings. From the largest, which was circular, came the auroralike radiance that formed an umbrella of light over the entire valley.

"Do I guess right," said Northwood "that the light is responsible for this oasis in the ice?"

"Yes,", said Dr. MunsonMundson [sic]. "In your American slang, it is canned sunshine containing an overabundance of certain rays, especially the Life Ray, which I have isolated." He smiled proudly. "You needn't look startled, my friend. Some of the most common things store sunlight. On very dark nights, if you have sharp eyes, you can see the radiance given off by certain flowers, which many naturalists say is trapped sunshine. The familiar nasturtium and the marigold opened for me the way to hold sunshine against the long polar night, for they taught me how to apply the Einstein theory of bent light. Stated simply, during the polar night, when the sun is hidden over the rim of the world, we steal some of his rays; during the polar day we concentrate the light."

"But could stored sunshine alone give enough warmth for the luxuriant growth of those jungles?"

"An overabundance of the Life Ray is responsible for the miraculous growth of all life in New Eden. The Life Ray is Nature's most powerful force. Yet Nature is often niggardly and paradoxical in her use of her powers. In New Eden, we have forced the powers of creation to take ascendency over the powers of destruction."


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 was found that men of high executive ability could not violate their nature. They could not escape exercising their executive ability, any more than a crab could escape crawling or a bird could escape flying. And so it was that all the splendid force of the men who had previously worked for themselves was now put to work for the good of society. The half-dozen great railway chiefs coöperated in the organizing of a national system of railways that was amazingly efficacious. Never again was there such a thing as a car shortage. These chiefs were not the Wall Street railway magnates, but they were the men who formerly had done the real work while in the employ of the Wall Street magnates.

Wall Street was dead. There was no more buying and selling and speculating. Nobody had anything to buy or sell. There was nothing in which to speculate. "Put the stock gamblers to work," said Goliah; "give those that are young, and that so desire, a chance to learn useful trades." "Put the drummers, and salesmen, and advertising agents, and real estate agents to work," said Goliah; and by hundreds of thousands the erstwhile useless middlemen and parasites went into useful occupations. The four hun-


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 dred thousand idle gentlemen of the country who had lived upon incomes were likewise put to work. Then there were a lot of helpless men in high places who were cleared out, the remarkable thing about this being that they were cleared out by their own fellows. Of this class were the professional politicians, whose wisdom and power consisted of manipulating machine politics and of grafting. There was no longer any graft. Since there were no private interests to purchase special privileges, no bribes were offered to legislators, and legislators for the first time legislated for the people. The result was that men who were efficient, not in corruption, but in direction, found their way into the legislatures.

With this rational organization of society amazing results were brought about. The national day's work was eight hours, and yet production increased. In spite of the great permanent improvements and of the immense amount of energy consumed in systematizing the competitive chaos of society, production doubled and tripled upon itself. The standard of living increased, and still consumption could not keep up with production. The maximum working age was decreased to fifty years, to forty-nine


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 years, and to forty-eight years. The minimum working age went up from sixteen years to eighteen years. The eight-hour day became a seven-hour day, and in a few months the national working day was reduced to five hours.

In the meantime glimmerings were being caught, not of the identity of Goliah, but of how he had worked and prepared for his assuming control of the world. Little things leaked out, clews were followed up, apparently unrelated things were pieced together. Strange stories of blacks stolen from Africa were remembered, of Chinese and Japanese contract coolies who had mysteriously disappeared, of lonely South Sea Islands raided and their inhabitants carried away; stories of yachts and merchant steamers, mysteriously purchased, that had disappeared and the descriptions of which remotely tallied with the crafts that had carried the Orientals and Africans and islanders away. Where had Goliah got the sinews of war? was the question. And the surmised answer was: By exploiting these stolen laborers. It was they that lived in the exposed village on Palgrave Island. It was the product of their toil that had purchased the yachts and merchant steamers


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 and enabled Goliah's agents to permeate society and carry out his will. And what was the product of their toil that had given Goliah the wealth necessary to realize his plane? Commercial radium, the newspapers proclaimed; and radiyte, and radiosole, and argatium, and argyte, and the mysterious golyte (that had proved so valuable in metallurgy). These were the new compounds, discovered in the first decade of the twentieth century, the commercial and scientific use of which had become so enormous in the second decade.

The line of fruit boats that ran from Hawaii to San Francisco was declared to be the property of Goliah. This was a surmise, for no other owner could be discovered, and the agents who handled the shipments of the fruit boats were only agents. Since no one else owned the fruit boats, then Goliah must own them. The point of which is: that it leaked out that the major portion of the world's supply in these precious compounds was brought to San Francisco by those very fruit boats. That the whole chain of surmise was correct was proved in later years when Goliah's slaves were liberated and honorably pensioned by the international government of the


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 world. It was at that time that the seal of secrecy was lifted from the lips of his agents and higher emissaries, and those that chose revealed much of the mystery of Goliah's organization and methods. His destroying angels, however, remained forever dumb. Who the men were who went forth to the high places and killed at his bidding will be unknown to the end of time—for kill they did, by means of that very subtle and then-mysterious force that Goliah had discovered and named "Energon."

But at that time Energon, the little giant that was destined to do the work of the world, was unknown and undreamed of. Only Goliah knew, and he kept his secret well. Even his agents, who were armed with it, and who, in the case of the yacht Energon, destroyed a mighty fleet of war-ships by exploding their magazines, knew not what the subtle and potent force was, nor how it was manufactured. They knew only one of its many uses, and in that one use they had been instructed by Goliah. It is now well known that radium, and radiyte, and radiosole, and all the other compounds, were by-products of the manufacture of Energon by Goliah from the sunlight; but at that time nobody knew what Energon


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text:
You're in the Army Now

Film appearances

 * "We're in the Army Now" (1925, lyrics only), appearing in the silent war film The Big Parade
 * "You're in the Army Now" (1928), as performed by soldiers in the 1928 film Noah's Ark

Sheet music

 * "We're in the Army Now" (1917), sheet music published by Tell Taylor

title: You're in the Army Now


text:
Author:William Taylor

 * William Taylor (1765–1836), British essayist
 * Tell Taylor (1876–1937), or William "Tell" Taylor, American songwriter, lyricist, traveling vaudeville performer, tenor vocalist, playwright, and music publisher

title: Author:William Taylor


text:
Author:Tell Taylor

Lyrics

 * "You're in the Army Now" (1917), with Ole Olsen

title: Author:Tell Taylor


text:
Author:Isham Edgar Jones

Compositions

 * "You're in the Army Now" (1917)

title: Author:Isham Edgar Jones


text: Template:The End A Warner Brothers Vitaphone Production


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Utricularia.]

Slender herbs, floating or terrestrial. Leaves of the terrestrial species all radical, inconspicuous or fugacious; of the floating species scattered, multifid with capillary segments, furnished with floating bladders. Peduncles or scapes radical or axillary, either 1-flowered or bearing a few- or many-flowered raceme or spike. Calyx 2-partite; segments entire or nearly so, often enlarged in fruit. Corolla spurred at the base, 2-lipped; upper lip erect, entire or 2-lobed; lower lip larger, spreading, 3–6-lobed, with a palate projecting into the throat and almost closing the flower. Stamens 2; filaments incurved. Style short; stigma unequally 2-lobed. Capsule globose or nearly so, 2-valved or bursting irregularly. Seeds many.

1. U. protrusa, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 206.—Stems floating in still water, branched, often extending to a length of several feet, slender, filiform. Leaves numerous, all submerged, spreading, pinnately multipartite; segments many, filiform; bladders numerous, about ⅛ in. long, obliquely ovoid, shortly pedicelled, attached near the base of the segments. "Scape stout, erect, 2–4-flowered. Sepals oblong. Corolla yellow; upper lip 3-lobed; lower broader, subquadrate, its disc protruded, margins recurved. Spur short, obtuse."—''Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 222.


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 FLAMING YOUTH

PART I

CHAPTER I

The room was vital with air and fresh with the scent of many flowers. It was a happy room, a loved room, even a petted room. There was about it a sense of stir, of life, of habitual holiday. Some rooms retain these echoes. People say of them that they have character or express individuality. But this one’s character was composite, possessing attributes of the many who had come and gone and laughed and played and perhaps loved there, at the behest of its mistress. A captious critic might have complained that it was over-crowded. The same critic might have said the same of Mona Fentriss’s life.

Though a chiefly contributory part of the room’s atmosphere, Mona Fentriss’s personality was not fully reflected in her immediate environment. The room was not a married room. It suggested none of the staidness, the habitude, the even acceptances of conjugal life. The bed stood outside, on the sleeping porch. It was a single bed. Unfriendly commentators upon the Fentriss ménage had been known to express the conviction that marriage was not a specially important element in Mrs. Fentriss’s joyous existence. Nevertheless there were the three children, all girls. There was also Fentriss.

The mistress of the room lolled on a cushioned chaise longue near the side window. She was a golden-brown, strong, delicately rounded woman, glowing with an effect 7

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 8

FLAMING

YOUTH

of triumphant and imperishable youth.

Not one of her

features but was faulty by strict artistic tenets; even the lustrous eyes were set at slightly different levels. Yet the total effect was that of loveliness; yes, more, of compelling charm. One would have guessed her to be still short of thirty. “This is final, is it?” she asked evenly of a man who was standing near the door. “Tt’s final enough,” he answered. He shambled across the reom to her side, moving like a bear. Like a bear’s his exterior was rough, shaggy, and seemed not to fit him well. His face was irregularly square, homely, thoughtful, snd humorous. “Want to ery?” he asked. “No. I want to swear.” “Go ahead.” Downstairs a door opened and closed. There followed the rhythmic crepitation of ice against metal. “There’s Ralph home,” interpreted the wife. “Call down and tell him to shake up one for me.” “Better not.” “Oh, you be damned!” she retorted, twinkling at him. “You've finished your day’s job as a physician. I need

one.” As he obediently went out she mused, with the instinct of the competent housekeeper: “Gin’s gone to twenty-five dollars a gallon. That*ll rasp poor old Ralph. I wonder how much this will jar him.” By “this” she meant the news which she had just forced from the reluctant lips of Dr. Robert Osterhout. She pursued her line of thought. “Who'll take over the

house?

The

girls know

Perhaps he'll marry again.

nothing

about

running

it.

He’s very young for fifty.”

The two men entered, Fentriss carrying the shaker.

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 FLAMING

YOUTH

9

He set it down, crossed the room and kissed his wife. There was an effect of habitual and well-bred gallantry

in the act. He was a slender, alert, companionable looking man with a quizzical expression. Dr. Osterhout poured out a cocktail which he offered to Mrs. Fentriss. She regarded it contemptuously.

“Bob, you devil! That’s only half a drink.” “It’s more than you ought to have.” “Pour me a real one. At once! Ralph; you do it. Come on.” With a shrug and a deprecatory smile at the physician, Ralph Fentriss filled the glass to the brim. The Fentriss cocktails were famous far beyond the suburban limits of Dorrisdale for length as well as flavour. “Here’s to Prohibition,” said their concoctor in his suave voice, before drinking; “and to your better health,

my dear.” “A toi,” she responded carelessly. ‘Leave the shaker, will you, Ralph? Bob and I are talking.” Fentriss nodded and went. A moment later the concert grand in the big living room below stairs responded te a touch at once delicate, strong and distinctive.

How

I used to love his music!” said Mona Fentriss

half to herself; “and still do,” she added. “Bob.” She turned upon her physician with laughing reproach in her eyes. “Don’t you know better, after all these years, than to try to keep me from doing anything I want to

do? I always get what I want.” “If you don’t, it’s not for lack of trying.” “J don’t even have to try very hard. Life has been a generous godfather to me. But I’ve always wanted more. Like Oliver Twist, wasn’t it? Or Jephthah’s daughter?” Dr. Osterhout grinned. “It was the horse leech’s daughters that were always crying ‘Give! Give! ”

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 10

FLAMING

“Why cry for it?

YOUTH

Reach out and help yourself,” she

said gaily. ‘“Them’s my principles. And now the fairy godfather is going to cut me off with a shilling. Ora year. Or less.” “Unless you obey orders it’ll be considerably less.” “Tet it! I’d rather do as I please while it lasts. I’ve rogued and I’ve ranged in my time,’ ”
 * ‘T*ve taken my fun where I found it,

sang Ralph Fentriss at the piano below to music of his own composing. “So have I,” murmured his wife. Her eyes grew brik liant, craving, excited

as they wandered

to the flower-

decked mantel upon which stood half a dozen photographs. All were of men. Though they varied in age and indications of character, they presented a typical similarity in being well-groomed and attractive. They might all have belonged to the same club. “Bob, do many women confess to their doctors?” “Lots.” “To your” “No. I don’t let *’em.”

“Why not?

I should think it would be interesting.”

“It’s only a trick to gratify the senses through recollection,” said the blunt physician. “Reflected lechery.” ‘You know too much, Bob. Then you won’t be my father confessor?” “I doubt if you could tell me much,” he said slowly. A smile, unabashed and mischievous, played upon her lips. “That’s an ambiguous sort of answer. Sometimes [ suspect that very little gets past you.” “T’m trained to observation,” he remarked. ‘And to silence. So you’re safe. I think it would do

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 FLAMING

YOUTH

11

me good to confess to you.” She grew still and pensive. “Bob, if I’d been a Roman Catholic do you suppose I’d have been—different?” “Doubted. Would you want to be?” “IT don’t really know that I would. Anyway I’m what I had to be. We all are.” “Fatalism is a convenient excuse.” “No; but I am,” she insisted. “It’s temperament. Temperament is fate.

For a woman, anyway,’ she added

with a flash of insight. ‘You don’t blame me, do you? I couldn’t help it, could 1?” He smiled down at her, tolerant but uncompromising. “Oh, don’t stand there looking like God,” she fretted. “Do you know what I’d resolved to do? Will you laugh at me if I tell you?” “Probably. Therefore tell me.” “TI was going to be a pattern of all the proprieties after I turned forty.” “Too early,” he pronounced judicially. “Why? What do you mean?” “Make it fifty.” She knit her smooth forehead. “Because I wouldn’t be pretty then?” “Oh, you’d charm and attract men at seventy. But you wouldn’t have such a—well, such an urgent temperament. That passes, usually.” “Bob! You beast!” But she laughed. “You’re very much the medical man, aren’t you?” “It’s my business in life.” “Well, the whole discussion is what you call an academic, question, anyhow. If you and your hateful medical science are right, I’ll never see thirty-eight, let alone forty, I don’t feel thirty-seven. 'There’s so much life in me. Too much, I suppose.”

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“No. Not too much.” “No more flutters for pretty Mona,” she mused. “At least she’s had her share. Do you think Ralph cares?” “You’re the one to know that.” “Tf he does, he’s never given any sign. But then, it’s years since he’s been true to me.” Her companion made a slight, uninterpretable gesture. “Shall I tell him?

Your verdict, I mean.”

“Great Judas, no! Why stir him up? It’s going to. be hard enough on him anyway.” “Ts it?” she said wistfully. ‘He'll miss me in a way, won’t he?

I am fond of him, too, you know.”

“Yes. I understand that.” “But you don’t understand why I’ve gone trouble-hunting, out of bounds.” “Yes.

I understand that, too.”

“Perhaps you do. would

You understand lots more than one

think from your dear,

old,

stupid

face.”

She

paused. “Tell me something, honestly, Bob. Has there been much talk about me?” “Oh, there’s always talk and always will be about anyone as brilliant and vivid as you.” “Don’t evade. Some of the older crowd igak’sat me as if they thought I was the Scarlet Woman come back to

life.

I’m not the Scarlet Woman, Bob.

Only a dash of

pink.” He smiled indulgently. “It’s strange,” she mused, “how the tradition of be haviour clings in the blood, in that set. Your set, Bob. Ah, well! Discretion is the better part of virtue, as someone said. And I haven’t been discreet, even if I have been virtuous. You believe I’ve been, don’t you, Bob?” “What, discreet?”

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 FLAMING Again

she laughed,

YOUTH

showing

little, even,

13 animal-like

teeth. “No; the other thing.” “I believe whatever you want me to.” “Meaning that you reserve your own opinion. But you’re a staunch friend, anyway. . . . The trouble with me is that I was born too soon. I really belong with this wild young age that’s coming on the stage just as I’m going off; with the girls. Listen!” Below

stairs Fentriss,

still at the piano, had

swung

into the rhythms of the Second Rhapsody, wild and broken as white water seething through a rock-beset gorge. “That’s the measure they dance to, the new generation. Doesn’t it get into your torpid blood, Bob? Don’t you wish you were young again? To be a desperado of twenty! They’re all desperadoes, these kids, all of them with any life in their veins; the girls as well as the boys; maybe more than the boys. Even Connie with her eyes of a vesta]. Ah!” A new note had merged with the music, a hoarse, child-

ish croon, following the mad measure with an interwoven recitative. “That’s Patricia. She’s dancing to it.” “How can you tell?” asked the physician. “By the way she’s singing. Little devil! I wonder what it’ll be like by the time she’s grown up,” mused the mother. “Which won’t be so long, now.” “So it won’t. I keep forgetting that. She seems such a baby. What a queer little creature it is, Bob!” ‘“She’s a terror. But there’s something lovable about her, too. A touch of you in her,.Mona.” “Qf me? She’s no more like me than I’m like my namesake of the well-known Lisa family. Nor like the older

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girls, either. Well, why shouldn't she be different from them? Coming five years after Pd supposed all that sart of thing was over. She was pure aceident. How I tried to get out of having her! Perhaps that’s why she’s such a strange little ef. But Ralph's crazy about her—as much as he can be crazy about anything. I thought for a time she'd bring us together again.” “But you found variety more amusing than pure domes-

ticity," suggested the physician. “I?

It wasn't I that began it; it was Ralph. You

know I never went in for even the mildest flirtation until long after Pat was born; until I began to get bored with the sameness of life.*

“Boredom leads more women astray than passion,” prenounced the other oracularly;

“Oh, astray.” she fretted. >

“in our set, anyway.”

“Don't use mid-Victorian

=

“TI was only philosophising about our lot in general.* “We're a pretty rotten lot, aren't we! Though I suppose the people you don’t know, the people that nobody knows, are just as rotten.

serves appearances!

Ah, well, so long as one pre-

And Ralph has no Kick coming.

He'd gone on the loose before I ever looked sidewise at any other man. They say he’s got a Floozie now, tucked away in & cozy corner somewhere.” “Do ther?” “Has he?” “Ask him.”

“Too good a sport,” she retorted.

“I shouldn't be ask-

ing you if I thought you'd tell me. Very likely you don't

know. He hasn*t been boring you with confessions, Pil bet! Men don’t, do they?” “Only of their symptoms.” “But they confess to women.”

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15

“The more fools they!” “Can’t I wring a confession out of you?” she teased. ‘Why haven’t you ever made love to me, Bob?” Too much afraid of losing what little I’ve got of you,” he returned sombrely. “How do you know you wouldn’t have got more? How do you know that I wouldn’t have given you—everything?” “Everything you could give wouldn’t be enough.” “Pig! You don’t want much, do you!” ‘Have you ever really cared for any of your partners in flirtation?” “You speak as if I’d had dozens,” she pouted. “Tt isn’t a question of the quantity but of the quality of your attachments. If I’d ever asked anything of you it would have been—well, romance.” He laughed quietly at himself. ‘Something you haven’t got to give. You see, I’m a romantic and you’re not. You’ve sought excitement, admiration, change. But not ‘the light that never was on land or sea.’ You’re adventurous and passionate, but not romantic. It’s quite a different order of thing.” And you’re brutal. Besides, you’re wrong; quite wrong.” “Am I?” His glance ranged the faces on the mantel. ‘Which one?”

- She gave him a swift smile.

“He isn’t there.

You

never saw him. His name was Cary Scott.” “Was? Is he dead?” “He’s out of my life;

or almost.

He’s married.

He

was hardly more than a boy when I knew him. Nine years ago in Paris. He was studying at the Polytechnique,

doing his post-graduate work and doing it brilliantly, I believe. He went mad over me. My fault; I meant him

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FLAMING

to; it amused me.

YOUTH

I was attracted, too.

There was a

vividness of youth about him. I didn’t realise how much { was going to miss him out of my life, though, until we came back. I did miss him. Like hell!” “He was the one to whom you really gave?” “Hardly so much as a kiss. I wanted to keep it that way, and he was slave to me. He was an innocent sort of soul, I think. Every year he sends me a card on my birthday—that was the date of our first meeting—to remind me that sometime we are to take up our friendship again. I never answer but I never quite forget.” “Ah, that’s the sort of thing that I’d have asked but

never expected of you.” “No; you never could have had it. That’s the sort of thing that one gives but once.” Suddenly she shot out her white, strong hand and gripped his wrist. “If you’d ever been really in love with me,” she said fiercely, “you

wouldn’t let me die. You'd find some way to save me.” His rugged face softened with pain. “My dear,” he said, “don’t you know that if there were any way in the world, any sacrifice——” “Yes;

I know;

I know!

[Pm sorry.

That was a rot-

ten thing to say.” “You’ve taken it all like such a good sport.” “[’m trying. Let’s not talk of it any more. Let’s talk of the girls. Bob, how much is there to heredity?” “Oh, Lord! Ask me to square the circle. Or make

the fifth hole in one. Or something easy.” “I was just thinking. Who’s going to look after them? Ralph won’t be of much use. He’s too detached.” “Well, the family physician can be of service in some ways,” he said slowly. “Particularly if he chances to be a family friend, too.”

“Would you?” she cried eagerly.

“They'll be a hand-

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 FLAMING

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1%

ful. Any modern girl is. But I'd rest easier, knowing you were on the job. Speaking of resting, I had rather a rotten night last night.” “What were you doing in the evening?” “We had a little poker party here in the room.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “If you won’t pay any heed to your doctor’s orders ” You know I won’t.” “Then you’ve got to pay the piper.” “Haven’t you got anything that will make me sleep?” “Were the pains bad?” “Pretty stiff. Will they get worse?” “I’m afraid so, my dear.” “More dope, then, please.” “Dangerous.” “Well?” She smiled up into his face, pleadingly, temptingly. “Well, Bob?” Her voicedropped. ‘“What’s the difference? Since it’s a hopeless case. Don’t be an inquisitor and sentence me to torture in the name of your god, Science,” she whispered.

He yielded. as you can?”

“All right.

But you'll stand it as long

“Good old Bob!” she murmured. She reached for his hand, twined her fingers around it, nestled it into her firm and rounded neck. ‘Then she laughed. “Well?” he queried. “Association

of ideas,” she answered.

ing of Cary Scott.” He winced and drew his hand away. Scott?”

“I was think-

‘‘What of Cary

“Tf he doesn’t come back pretty soon, what a joke it will be on him!”

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 CHAPTER

II

Tuer Fentriss house stood high on a knoll overlooking the Country Club which constituted Dorrisdale’s chief attraction as a suburb. Mona Fentriss had built it with a legacy of $25,000 left to her just before Patricia’s birth, and Ralph had put in the $15,000 necessary to complete the work after the architect’s original estimate had been exhausted, leaving the place still unfinished by one wing, all the decorations, and most of the plumbing. The extra cost was due largely to the constantly altering schemes of Mona. She wished her house “just so,” and just so she finally had it from the little conservatory off the side hallway to the comfortable servants’ suite on the third floor.

If the result was,

architecturally,

a plate of hash, as Ralph called it, nevertheless the house was particularly easy to live in. To Mona Fentriss belonged the credit for this. What she had of conscience was enlisted in her domestic economy. As Ralph Fentriss’s wife she might be casually unfaithful. As mistress of his household she was impeccable. The effortless seductiveness of her personality established its special atmosphere throughout the place. It made the servants her devoted and unwearying aids, and broadly speaking, a household is much what the servants make it. People gravitate naturally to a well-run place. Life seems so suave and easy there. Guests of all ages came and went at Holiday Knoll, mostly men. Mona cared little for women, and her own strong magnetism for men had been inherited by her two grown daughters. 18

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 FLAMING

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19

There was no special selectiveness about the company. All that was required of them was that they should be superficially presentable and contribute something of amusement or entertainment to the composite life of the ménage. At least nine-tenths of them were making love to Constance or Mary Delia or Mona herself, openly or surreptitiously as the case might be. It made a pleasantly restless and stimulating atmosphere. In the city itself there would have been criticism of the easy standards; indeed there was more or less which drifted out to the Knoll. But judgments in the suburbs are kindlier. And Dorrisdale is quite fashionable enough to establish its own standards. Any week-end would find half a dozen or more cars bunched on the driveway, having brought their quota of pleasure-seeking youth out from New York or from Philadelphia or Baltimore or Princeton. The girls had carte blanche, within

reasonable

limits, for invitations,

which they were careful not to abuse. A few errors in judgment had reacted unpleasantly not only upon themselves but upon their undesirable guests. Mona Fentriss could act with decision and dignity within her own walls, Her social discrimination was keen if not rigid, and she possessed a blighting gift of sarcasm, mainly imitative, the most deadly kind used against the young. Neither of the girls was likely ever to forget her imitation of Connie’s friend from Minneapolis whose method of handling a fork, according

to Mrs.

Fentriss’s

theory, had been

derived from bayonet practice in camp; nor her presentation of a steamship acquaintance of Dee’s who had too pathetically bewailed his losses at bridge. Partly from theory, partly as a trouble-saving device, the mother seldom attempted any exercise of direct authority upon the children. A system of self-govern-

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 20

FLAMING

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ment was established, or, rather, encouraged to grow into

being.

It was ordained that each of the girls should

have her own room to hold lke a castle, into which not even the parents might intrude unbidden, and for which

the occupant was held responsible. Constance’s room was luxurious, lazy, filled with photographs mainly of groups —

in which her charming face was always central. The special mark of Mary Delia’s was its white and airy |

Kemptness. Patricia’s was a mess of clothing and odds and ends, tossed hither and thither and left to lie as they fell until a temporary access of orderliness imspired the child to clean up. It suggested a room in which no dow was opened at night. Fentriss called it the hurrah’s nest. Through this feminine environment he moved lke a tolerant but semi-detached presiding genius. His profession as consulting engineer took him early to the city and that, or something else, often kept him late. Being a considerate though rather selfish person, he invariably telephoned when detained over dinner time, which made the less difference in that there were always two or three men dropping in after golf, hopeful of an invitation to

stay: Harry Mercer or the Grant twins, or Sam Gracie, or. one of the Selfmdges, father or son. Envious mothers whispered that Mrs. Fentriss was trying te catch Emslie Selfridge for Constance, and that it might not be as good a match as she supposed; things weren’t going any too well at the Selfridge factory since the strike. They also wondered acidly that Ralph Fentriss was so easy as to let his pretty wife go about so much with Steve Selfridge, who was almost old enough to be her father, it was true, but whose reputation was that of a decidedly unwithered age. It would no more have occurred to Fentriss to raise objections over Mona’s going where she pleased, ith

win

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 FLAMING

YOUTE

21

whom she pleased than it would have occurred to her to ask his permission. All that was past long ago. The outside member of the family was Robert Osterhout. He lived near by in a small studio-bungalow where he conducted delicate and obscure experiments in the therapy of the ductless glands. Thrice a week he lectured at the University, for he had already won a reputation in his own specialty. Having inherited a sufficient fortune, he was letting his private practice dwindle to a point where presently the Fentriss family would be about all there was left of it. Into and out of the house on the knoll he wandered, casual, unobtrusive, never in the way,

always welcome, contributing a quiet, solid background to the kaleidoscopic pattern of its existence. In the most innocent of senses he was l’ami du maison. If he was and had for years been in love with Mona, the fact never made a ripple in the affectionate friendliness of their relations nor in the outward placidity of his life. It was accepted as part of the natural scheme of things. Fentriss recognized it, quite without resentment. Mona wondered at times whether Constance and Mary Delia were not aware of it—not that it would have made any difference. She herself made little account of it, yet she would sorely have missed the stable, enduring, inexpressive devotion had it lapsed. Bob was the intellectual outlet for her restless, fervent, exigent nature, too complex to be

satisfied with physical and emotional gratifications alone. One could talk to Bob; God knows, there were few enough others in her set with any understanding beyond the current chatter of the day! After her sentence was

pronounced she talked to him even more frankly than theretofore. “Tf Ralph had died, Bob, I’d probably have married you.”

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 =

=

“Sat Raleh Gide Ga” she permed - Tee akad, Yor cast “Net very well” “Sekt yee usght “AR ef un “Senne, I thak. “She inet meant

marry Rabi” marry the gork*

She's met Bie za” as pretty as yea™

Mera New him a Kiss “She's mock, mech

preftien

Daait be seprejudionl. And she's wery intelligent, fer

“Xhent bal? ay age” “Ohh, She eatch wp Fast enmeamh hah quae eae

“Mach tao attractive for an eld heshand, thask That way tranhie hee—as ree nee

Dae Se am Impndiont, GHG preitr Merv Doha

erdmacn “Perhaps

“ZT uemdkrsSand Dee better than I Gd Ceark.”

“De yen?

BS

ee len eae

yea

mer the I &

=F

Sct aca fo

etie er gies eel

“Thats what I Pie shoot bee

“You rally are quite chommy wth ber, arent x sani the mothe, Jnniing at him comeat

“Bat

decsese Wan so mach alder, She deese’t care mad a sient mer elt

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 FLAMING “She’s unawakened.

YOUTH

23

There’s hot blood under that cool

skin.” “I wonder what makes you think that?” “Oh, a medically trained man notices little things.” “So does a woman. But I haven’t seen Has Dee begun to awake?” “Oh, no! She’s quite unaware of herself in that way. Very likely she won’t until after she’s married.” “After? Won’t that be a little late?” “Tt’s the first awakening a lot of women have. And a harsh one for some.” “What a lot of unpleasant things doctors know about life |? “Life’s got its unpleasant phases.” “Particularly for women. . . . Yet I’m glad I’ve been a woman.” A little, sensuous quiver passed over her tenderly modelled lips. She smiled, sighed, and reverted to her other thought. “But you’re going to have your hands full with the Fentrisses. Really, you’d do better if you married one.” “Perhaps I shouldn’t do as well. I might be too taken up with the one.” She darted a glance at him, full of shrewd questioning with a touch of suspicion. “You could care for Dee,” she interpreted. “I’d be more flattered if it were Connie.” She pressed an electric button. To the trim maid who appeared she said, “Send Miss Dee here, please, Mollie.” “What are you going to do, Mona?” demanded Osterhout in some alarm, for he knew the devastating frankness with which she was wont to deal with those nearest her. “Wait and see.” There was a rhythmic, swift footfall on the stairs, the

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FLAMING

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door was thrown open, and Mary Delia Fentriss swung in upon them. “Hello, mother!” she said. “Hail, Lord Roberts! What’s the summons?” Her bearing attested poise, careless self-confidence, and

a brusque and ready good humour. She was tall, rounded, supple, browned, redolent of physical expression. At first sight one knew that here was a girl whose body would exhale freshness, whose lips would be cool, whose breath would be sweet, whose voice would be even, whose senses and nerves would be controlled. A student of humankind might have appreciated in her the unafraid honesty and directness which so often go with the consciousness of physical strength, in women as well as men. Her nickname in the family was Candida. She was not beautiful; not even pretty, by strict standards. But there was about her a sort of careless splendour. “Been playing golf?” asked her mother. “Yes. Cantered in with a forty-seven.”

“Nice going! How would you like to marry Bob?” Neither the expression nor the attitude of the girl altered, but her cool and thoughtful eyes turned upon Osterhout. “Has his lordship been making proposals for me?” “No; I haven’t!” barked the gentleman in the case. “Watson, the strait-jacket! He’s growing violent.” “It was wholly my idea,” proffered Mona. “J thought Bobs was your special property. Why mark him down? It isn’t bargain day.” “He’s a fairly good bargain, though,” pointed out her mother. “Don’t mind me if you want to discuss my good points,” said Osterhout, lighting a cigarette and seating himself upon the window sill.

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text:
Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/600

560

2. U. Mairii, Cheesem. n. sp.—Stems floating in still water, sparingly branched, 2–6 in. long, stouter than m the preceding species. Leaves numerous, all submerged, spreading, about ¼ in. long, pinnately divided into numerous capillary segments; segments broader than in U. protrusa; bladders numerous, about $1⁄10$ in. long, attached to the segments. Flowers not seen.

3. U. novæ-zealandiæ, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 206.—Stemless. Roots slender, creeping, bearing numerous shortly pedicelled bladders about ⅛ in. diam. when fully grown. Leaves 1–3, all radical, often disappearing at the time of flowering, ¼–¾ in. long, rarely more, very narrow-linear or linear-spathulate, quite entire, rather fleshy, 1-nerved. Scape or peduncle very slender, variable in length, 3–9 in. high or more, simple, erect, 1–4-flowered; bracts small, opposite or in threes. Flowers shortly pedieelled, ¼–⅓ in. long, pale-purple with a yellow eye. Upper calyx-segment orbicular or nearly so, rounded or slightly retuse at the tip; lower rather smaller, concave, 2-lobed. Upper lip of the corolla much the smaller, narrow cuneate-oblong, constricted below the middle, truncate or nearly so at the tip; lower lip with a broad horizontal almost semicircular lamina about ⅓ in. diam., margin entire; palate with three raised ridges, each with a central groove; spur short, broad, obtuse. Capsule membranous, globose, ⅙ in. diam.—''Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 222. U. subsimilis, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xvi. (1884) 334.


text:
Page:Manual of the New Zealand Flora.djvu/601

Utricularia.] 4. U. delicatula, Cheesem. n. sp.—Habit of U. novæ-zealandiæ, but much smaller, the scape seldom more than 3 in. high. Leaves 1 or 2 or wanting, narrow-linear or narrow linear-spathulate, quite entire. Scape 1–3 in. high, slender, wiry, erect, 1–3-flowered; bracts very small. Flowers shortly pedicelled, about ⅕ in. long, white with a faint yellow eye. Calyx-segments almost equal, suborbicular, concave. Upper lip of corolla the smaller, linear-oblong, two-lobed at the tip; lower lip with a horizontally spreading lamina which is quite entire, not 3-lobed; palate very obscurely thickened or quite plane; spur longer than in U. novæ-zealandiæ, minutely 2-horned at the tip. Capsule globose, membranous, about 1 in. diam.

5. U. Colensoi, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 206.—"Altogether like U. novæ-zealandiæ but with the upper lip of the corolla linear-oblong, 2-lobed; lower broadly cuneate, 3-lobed, middle lobe retuse, disc with 3 gibbous prominences."—''Handb. N.Z. ''Fl. 223. (?) U. vulcanica, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xxvi. (1894) 318.

6. U. monanthos, Hook. f. Fl. Tasm. i. 299.—A minute stemless herb. Roots or rhizome very slender, bearing several subglobose compressed bladders $1⁄15$–$1⁄10$ diam. Leaves few, all radical, ¼–1 in. long, narrow linear-spathulate, petiolate, quite entire. Scape slender, simple, erect, ¾–4 in. high, 1- or rarely 2-flowered. Flowers large for the size of the plant, ⅓ in. diam. or more, dark violet-purple with a yellow eye. Calyx-segments oblong, obtuse. Upper lip of corolla much the smaller, broadly cuneate, retuse; lower lip expanded into a broad semicircular horizontally spreading lamina; palate glandular; spur short, obtuse. Capsule globose, membranous.—''Handb. N.Z. Fl.'' 222.


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 FLAMING

“T don’t,” said Mary Delia. market proposition.

YOUTH

25

“Let’s consider him as a

His age is against him.

forty, aren’t you, Bobs?

You're

. . . He doesn’t squirm, mother.

That’s a bad sign; shows he’s reached the age where he doesn’t care. Or is it a good sign, showing his self-control?” “Dee, I’d beat you if I married you.” Her eyes lightened. “Would you? I believe you’d try.” With a bound she was upon him. One arm crooked under his shoulder, the heel of the other fist was thrust under

his chin. “Improved jit,” she panted. work cut out.”

‘“You’d have your

There was a quick shift, a blending of the two figures,

and the slighter was bent backward almost to the floor. “Give up?” demanded Osterhout, his face close above the laughing lips. “Yes. Lord, you’re quick! Thought Thad you. Take your penalty and let me up.” Ignoring the invitation he set her in a chair and restored his deranged necktie. “Ill apologise for the forty,” ‘“You’re not so old and feeble!

To resume,

as we say when serious; you’re homely 39 ah ‘aeraaie “Thank you!” “but it’s a nice homely. You’ve got disposition. And money enough. Haven’t ‘Enough for me.” “How passionately he pleads his cause! nasty round of golf, too; I mustn’t forget no. I don’t think I would. Not even if you

said Dee.

as a scalded

a lamb of 9 you?” You play a that. But— asked me.”

“What’s the obstacle, Dee?”

“Well, for one thing, there’s Jimmy James.” “What !” “Quite so,” said the girl sedately.

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“You’re engaged to James?” “We haven’t got that far yet. But I’ve got him on the run.” “Dee!” expostulated her mother, laughing.

“Does he know of your honourable intentions?” queried Osterhout. “He hasn’t expressed his own yet.

But he will.” “When?” “Next time I kiss him.” “Next time, eh? How many times will that make?” ‘‘Haven’t counted, Grandpa,” mocked

the girl.

“We

haven’t pulled many petting parties, though.” “Well, I’m good-and-be-damned,” muttered Osterhout. “Modern stuff, Bob,”? remarked Mona.

“Being an ancient fossil, ’d say dangerous stuff with a fellow like Jameson James.” “Not with a girl like me,” returned Dee with superb assurance. “Bee-lieve muh, I’ve got a hand on the emergency brake every minute.” Osterhout, who had returned to his window seat, gave a

sharp exclamation. ““What’s the matter now?” He rubbed his cheek, growling.

A hoarse, childish voice

from below, which had in it some echo of Mona Fentriss’s

lyric and alluring tones, served to answer the question: ‘Where did I hit you, old Bobs?” “Tt’s the Scrub,” said Dee.

“Don’t you call me ‘Bobs,’ you young devil.” “Oh, all right! Doctor Bobs. Come down. I’ve got a fer-rightful gash in my knee.” “Well, don’t show it to the world. mediately.”

I'll be there im-

“If you want to be the family benefactor,” said Mary

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ar

Delia as he was leaving, “marry Pat. Nobody else ever will,” There was a pause as for consideration, “A stinkin’ liar,” it concluded with conviction.
 * “You’re a liar!” came the hoarse voice from outside.

“Pat!” called her mother. “Oh, very well! But I bet I’m married before I’m Dee’s age. And to a better man than Jimmy James. He’s a chaser.” “We've got to send that child away to school,” said Mona Fentriss in amused dismay as the door closed behind Osterhout. “She’s growing up any old way, and she seems to know everything that’s going on. . . . Dee, are you really going to marry Jimmy James?” “TI think so. Any objections?” “Well, Ada Clare, you know.” “She’s the kind that men don’t get through with so readily. It’s gone pretty far.” “It’s gone the limit probably. Well, I never thought Jimmy was President of the Purity League, Mother.” “Do you really care for him, Dee?” “Of course I do. I don’t mean that he gives me an awful thrill. Nobody does.” “Perhaps the right man would.”
 * “He’s through with her.”

“Then I haven’t seen him yet.

Mother,” she turned

her cool regard upon Mona, “tell me about it.” “About what?”

“The thrill.

The real thrill.

You know.”

Mona’s colour deepened. “You’re a queer child, Dee. There are some things a woman has to find out for herself.”

“Or get some man to teach her,” supplied the girl

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thoughtfully. ‘The whole thing’s mostly bluff, J think. Men are queer things. I could laugh my head off at Jimmy sometimes.” “That’s a good safeguard.” “Yes;

but I don’t need it. . . . Mother, aren’t we go-

ing to pull a big party this spring?” “Of course. And we ought to do it pretty soon, too.” “What makes you say that so queerly?” “Nothing,” answered Mona hastily. “I was just thinking.” For though she was up and about again, she knew that she was weakening under the heart attacks which she endured with silent fortitude, due partly to natural pride, partly to her belief that a complaining woman lost all charm for those about her, winning only the poor substitute of pity instead of admiration. Upon Dr. Osterhout she had imposed silence; she was determined that her household should know nothing so long as concealment was possible. In her way she was an _ unselfish woman. She was quite aware that this would be the last of her parties in the house on the knoll. Pat’s voice floated upward in tones of lamentation. “Oh, damn it, Bobs! Go easy, can’t you? That stuff’s like fire.” “Patricia’s

fifteen,” reflected the mother.

her at the Sisterhood School next fall.”

“Ill enter

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