Ed Meyers was waddling toward them with the quick light step of the
fat man. His pink, full-jowled face was glowing. His eyes were bright
as a boy's. He stopped at their table and paused for one dramatic
moment.

"So, me beauty, you two were in cahoots, huh? That's the second low-
down deal you've handed me. I haven't forgotten that trick you turned
with Nussbaum at DeKalb. Never mind, little girl. I'll get back at you
yet."

He nodded a contemptuous head in Jock's direction. "Carrying a
packer?"

[Illustration: "'Come on out of here, and I'll lick the shine off your
shoes, you blue-eyed babe, you!'"]

Emma McChesney wiped her fingers daintily on her napkin, crushed it on
the table, and leaned back in her chair. "Men," she observed,
wonderingly, "are the cussedest creatures. This chap occupied the same
room with you last night and you don't even know his name. Funny! If
two strange women had found themselves occupying the same room for a
night they wouldn't have got to the kimono and back hair stage before
they would not only have known each other's name, but they'd have
tried on each other's hats, swapped corset cover patterns, found
mutual friends living in Dayton, Ohio, taught each other a new Irish
crochet stitch, showed their family photographs, told how their
married sister's little girl nearly died with swollen glands, and
divided off the mirror into two sections to paste their newly washed
handkerchiefs on. Don't tell _me_ men have a genius for friendship."