good humor.

"Give it back, and I'll try it again. There's a place called the
Pocket. I'll try that, for luck." Then she added carelessly--"What
would have happened, if you hadn't answered that man at all?"

"I'd have been canned, maybe."

"Forevermore." She pretended to chalk her cue with a tiny powder puff
which she took from a ridiculous vanity bag that swung from her belt.
"Wouldn't you kind of like to be canned--under the circumstances?"

"No, I wouldn't. I need the money." Jack bit his lips to keep from
grinning at the powder-puff play.

"Oh, I see." She tried another shot. "Why don't you cut the legs off
this table? I would. It's miles too high."

"I don't monkey with government property, myself." He placed a
peculiar accent on the last word, thus pointing his meaning very
clearly.

"Now, _what_ do you know about _that_? Missed it--with a government
cone, shot by a government stick on a government table, while a
government scowl fairly shrieks: 'Cut out this desecration!'" She
chalked her cue gravely, powdered her nose afterward, using a round
scrap of a mirror not much bigger than a silver dollar. "Do you stay
up here all the time and scowl, all by yourself?"

"All the time and scowl, all by myself." Jack took his hands from his