ed, his eyes
rolling. He resolved to prepare an elaborate programme card on the
back of an old envelope. Rapidly the line was formed, Hilma and Harran
Derrick in the lead, Annixter having obstinately refused to engage
in either march, set or dance the whole evening. Soon the confused
shuffling of feet settled to a measured cadence; the orchestra blared
and wailed, the snare drum, rolling at exact intervals, the cornet
marking the time. It was half-past eight o'clock.

Annixter drew a long breath:

"Good," he muttered, "the thing is under way at last."

Singularly enough, Osterman also refused to dance. The week before
he had returned from Los Angeles, bursting with the importance of his
mission. He had been successful. He had Disbrow "in his pocket." He
was impatient to pose before the others of the committee as a skilful
political agent, a manipulator. He forgot his attitude of the early part
of the evening when he had drawn attention to himself with his wonderful
clothes. Now his comic actor's face, with its brownish-red cheeks,
protuberant ears and horizontal slit of a mouth, was overcast
with gravity. His bald forehead was seamed with the wrinkles of
responsibility. He drew Annixter into one of the empty stalls and began
an elaborate explanation, glib, voluble, interminable, going over again
in detail what he had reported to the committee in outline.

"I managed--I schemed--I kept dark--I lay low----"

But Annixter refused to listen.

"Oh, rot your schemes. There's a punch in the harness room that will
make the hair grow on the top of your head in the place where the hair
ought to grow. Come on, we'll round up some of the boys and walk into
it."

They edged their way around the hall outside "The Grand March," toward
the harness room, picking up on their way Caraher, Dyke, Hooven and old
Broderson. Once in the harness room, Annixter shot the bolt.

"That affair outside," he observed, "will take care of itself, but
here's a little orphan child that gets lonesome without company."

Annixter began ladling the punch, filling the glasses.

Osterman proposed a toast to Quien Sabe and the Biggest Barn. Their
elbows crooked in silence. Old Broderson set down his glass, wiping his
long beard and remarking:

"That--that certainly is very--very agreeable. I remember a punch I
drank on Christmas day in '83, or no, it was '84--anyhow, that punch--it
was in Ukiah--'TWAS '83--" He wandered on aimlessly, unable to stop