The tall man swore bitterly. He went to one of a row of little wooden
boxes and shut himself in it. His companion repaired to a similar box.

At first he felt like an opulent monk in a too-small cell, and he turned
round two or three times to see if he could. He arrived finally into his
bathing-dress. Immediately he dropped gasping upon a three-cornered
bench. The suit fell in folds about his reclining form. There was
silence, save for the caressing calls of the waves without.

Then he heard two shoes drop on the floor in one of the little coops. He
began to clamor at the boards like a penitent at an unforgiving door.

"Tom," called he, "Tom--"

A voice of wrath, muffled by cloth, came through the walls. "You go t'
blazes!"

The freckled man began to groan, taking the occupants of the entire row
of coops into his confidence.

"Stop your noise," angrily cried the tall man from his hidden den. "You
rented the bathing-suit, didn't you? Then--"

"It ain't a bathing-suit," shouted the freckled man at the boards. "It's
an auditorium, a ballroom, or something. It isn't a bathing-suit."

The tall man came out of his box. His suit looked like blue skin. He
walked with grandeur down the alley between the rows of coops. Stopping
in front of his friend's door, he rapped on it with passionate knuckles.