of his own, to emphasize his knack for quick, decisive, well-
calculated action. The money he received from Coverly enabled him
to maintain the posture he had assumed; he spent it with his usual
prodigality, receiving little direct benefit, but making each
dollar look like four. Extravagance with him was an art, money ran
out of his pockets like water, but although he was already in a
position to borrow, he did not do so. He merely marked time,
deriving a grim amusement at the way his popularity grew as his
currency dwindled. It was a game, enjoyable so long as it lasted.
Egotistical he knew himself to be, but it was a conscious fault;
to tickle his own vanity filled him with the same satisfaction a
cat feels at having its back rubbed, and he excused himself by
reasoning that his deceit harmed nobody. Meanwhile, with feline
alertness he waited for a mouse to appear.

He was relieved one day to receive a telegram from Gus Briskow
asking him to meet Ma and Allie at the evening train and "get them
a hotel." He managed to secure a good suite at the Ajax, and it
was with genuinely pleasurable anticipation that he drove to the
station.

Dismay smote him, however, at first sight of the new arrivals. Ma
Briskow resembled nothing so much as one of those hideous "crayon
enlargements" he had seen in farmhouses--atrocities of an art long
dead--for she was clad in an old-fashioned basque and skirt of
some stiff, near-silk material, and her waist, which buttoned far
down the front and terminated in deep points, served merely to
roof over but not to conceal a peculiarity of figure which her
farm dress had mercifully hidden. Gray discovered that Ma's body,
alas! bore a quaint resemblance in outline to a gourd. A tiny