on an alternatin'
circuit.

"Ahr chee!" says Swifty Joe. "To look at the map of woe you're carryin'
around, you'd think nobody ever had a bum tusk before."

"Nobody ever had this one before," says I, "and the way I look now ain't
chronic, like some faces I know of."

"Ahr chee!" says Swifty, which is his way of bringin' in a minority
report.

The worst of it was, though, I'm billed to show up at Rockywold for a May
party that Sadie and Mrs. Purdy-Pell was pullin' off, and when I lands
there Friday afternoon the jaw sensations was still on the job. I'm
feeling about as cheerful and chatty as a Zoo tiger with ingrowin'
toenails. So, after I've done the polite handshake, and had a word with
Sadie on the fly, I digs out my exercise uniform and makes a sneak down
into their dinky little gym., where there's a first class punchin' bag
that I picked out for Purdy-Pell myself.

You know, I felt like I wanted to hit something, and hit hard. It wa'n't
any idle impulse, either. That tooth was jumpin' so I could almost feel
my heels leave the floor, and I had emotions that it would take more than
language to express proper. So I peels off for it, down to a sleeveless
jersey and a pair of flannel pants, and starts in to drum out the devil's
tattoo on that pigskin bag.

I was so busy relievin' my feelin's that I didn't notice anything float
in the door; but after awhile I looks up and discovers the audience.
She's a young female party that I didn't remember havin' seen before at
any of the Rockywold doin's; but it looks like she's one of the guests,
all right.

Well, I hadn't been introduced, and I couldn't see what she was buttin'
into the gym. for, anyway, so I keeps right on punchin' the bag; thinkin'
that if she was shocked any by my costume she'd either get over it, or
beat it and have a fit.

She's one of the kind you might expect 'most anything from,--one of these
long, limp, loppy, droop eyed fluffs, with terracotta hair, and a
prunes-and-prisms mouth all puckered to say something soulful. She's
wearin' a whackin' big black feather lid with a long plume trailin' down
over one ear, a strawb'ry pink dress cut accordin' to Louis Catorz
designs,--waist band under her armpits, you know,--and nineteen-button
length gloves. Finish that off with a white hen feather boa, have her
hands clasped real shy under her chin, and you've got a picture of what I
sees there in the door. But it was the friendly size-up she was givin'
m