good-natured over my intrusion.

"No," said he, "don't go. It's only a short story I promised for a
Christmas number. They offered me fifteen cents a word and promised to
put my name on the cover in red, so I couldn't very well refuse. It's no
inspiration, though, I tell you that." He rose and pressed a bell behind
him and ordered whiskeys and ginger ales, as if he were in a hotel. "Sit
down, Crocker," he said, waving me to a morocco chair. "Why don't you
come over to see us oftener?"

"I've been quite busy," I said.

This remark seemed to please him immensely.

"What a sly old chap you are," said he; "really, I shall have to go back
to the inn and watch you."

"What the deuce do you mean?" I demanded.

He looked me over in well-bred astonishment and replied:

"Hang me, Crocker, if I can make you out. You seem to know the world
pretty well, and yet when a fellow twits you on a little flirtation you
act as though you were going to black his eyes."

"A little flirtation!" I repeated, aghast.

"Oh, well," he said, smiling, "we won't quarrel over a definition. Call
it anything you like."