"Well, who is he?" insisted Ed Meyers. "He told me everything but his
name this morning. I wish I had throttled him with a bunch of Bisons'
badges last night."

"His name," smiled Emma McChesney, "is Jock McChesney. He's my one and
only son, and he's put through his first little business deal this
morning just to show his mother that he can be a help to his folks if
he wants to. Now, Ed Meyers, if you're going to have apoplexy don't
you go and have it around this table. My boy is only on his second
piece of pie, and I won't have his appetite spoiled."




V

PINK TIGHTS AND GINGHAMS


Some one--probably one of those Frenchmen whose life job it was to
make epigrams---once said that there are but two kinds of women: good
women, and bad women. Ever since then problem playwrights have been
putting that fiction into the mouths of wronged husbands and building
their "big scene" around it. But don't you believe it. There are four
kinds: good women, bad women, good bad women, and bad good women. And
the worst of these is the last. This should be a story of all four
kinds, and when it is finished I defy you to discover which is which.

When the red stuff in the thermometer waxes ambitious, so that fat men
stand, bulging-eyed, before it and beginning with the ninety mark