"Why hurry, when the future is always waiting?"

"Why aren't you holding your partner's head since he committed political
suicide in the _Sentinel_?"

"I'd rather hold your head, Lyd, any day in the week."

"Gaul," said Miss Chipley, passing on, her sharply etched little face
glowing in the pink reflection of the parasol, "is bounded on the north by
Mrs. Gallup's boarding-house, and on the south by----"

"By the Frigid Zone!"

Then the door from behind swung open. Mr. Penfield Evans stepped into Mrs.
Gallup's cool, exclusive parlor of better days, and delivering his card to
a moist-fingered maid, sat himself among the shrouded furniture to await
Mrs. Alys Brewster-Smith and Miss Emelene Brand.

Mrs. Gallup's boarding-house was finishing its noonday meal. Boiled odors
lay upon a parlor that was otherwise redolent of the more opulent days of
the Gallups. A not too ostentatious clatter of dishes came through the
closed folding-doors.

Almost immediately Mrs. Alys Brewster-Smith, her favorite Concentrated
Breath of the Lily always in advance, rustled into the darkened parlor, her
stride hitting vigorously into her black taffeta skirts. Even as she shook
hands with Mr. Evans, she jerked the window shade to its height, so that
her smoothness and coloring shone out above her weeds.