fer?"

"You mind your own business and do as you're told!" said Helena tartly.
"Go in there and stay with the Patriarch."

"Sure," said the Flopper, grinning a little now. "Sure t'ing--but youse
needn't get on yer ear about it. Cheer up, mabbe de Doc'll be out
to-night, an' if he don't hear youse yellin' himself will I tell him
youse are out on de beach t'rowin' a fit?"

"No," Helena answered sharply; "tell him nothing--I'm out." Then, quite
as quickly, changing her mind: "Yes; tell him I'm down there--or come
and get me yourself"--and she walked abruptly into her own room.

"Now wot do youse t'ink of dat?" demanded the Flopper of the universe.
He blinked at the door she had closed in his face. "Say," he asserted,
with sublime inconsistency, "if Mamie Rodgers was like all de rest of
dem, I'd t'row up me dukes before de gong rang." The Flopper went into
the Patriarch's room, and took the chair beside the other that Helena
had vacated. "Swipe me, if I wouldn't!" he added fervently, by way of
confirmation.

Helena, in her own room, opened one of her trunks, lifted out the tray,
worked somewhat impatiently down through several layers of yellow,
paper-covered literature, that would have made the classics on the
Patriarch's bookshelves shrivel up and draw their skirts hurriedly
around them in righteous horror could they but have known or been
capable of such intensely human characteristics, and finally produced a
daintily jewelled little cigarette case and match box. She slammed the
tray back, slammed the cover of the trunk down, snatched up a wrap,