growin' warm under
the collar. Bah! Some of these perfectly good folks have a habit of
gettin' on my nerves. All the way down to Clam Creek I kept tryin' to
wipe him off the slate, and I'd made up my mind to dodge Brother Bob, if
I had to sleep in the woods.

So as soon as I hops off the train I gets my directions and starts to
tramp over this tract that Duke Borden was plannin' on blowin' some of
his surplus cash against. And say, if anybody wants an imitation desert,
dotted with scrub pine and fringed with salt marshes, that's the place to
go lookin' for it. There's hundreds of square miles of it down there that
nobody's usin', or threatenin' to.

Also I walked up an appetite like a fresh landed hired girl. I was so
hungry that I pikes straight for the only hotel and begs 'em to lead me
to a knife and fork. For a wonder, too, they brings on some real food,
plain and hearty, and I don't worry about the way it's thrown at me.

Yon know how it is out in the kerosene district. I finds myself face to
face with a hunk of corned beef as big as my two fists, boiled Murphies,
cabbage and canned corn on the side, bread sliced an inch thick, and
spring freshet coffee in a cup you couldn't break with an ax. Lizzie, the
waitress, was chewin' gum and watchin' to see if I was one of them fresh
travelin' gents that would try any funny cracks on her.

I'd waded through the food programme as far as makin' a choice between
tapioca puddin' and canned peaches, when in drifts a couple that I knew,
the minute I gets my eyes on 'em, must be Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cathaway. Who
else in that little one-horse town would be sportin' a pair of puttee
leggin's and doeskin ridin' breeches? That was Bob's makeup, includin' a
flap-pocketed cutaway of Harris tweed and a corduroy vest. They fit him a
little snug, showin' he's laid on some flesh since he had 'em built. Also
he's a lot grayer than I expected, knowin' him to be younger than
DeLancey.

As for Mrs. Bob--well, if you can remember how the women was dressin' as
far back as two years ago, and can throw on the screen a picture of a
woman who has only the reminders of her good looks left, you'll have her
framed up. A pair of seedy thoroughbreds, they was, seedy and down and
out.

[Illustration: "I knew it must be Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cathaway"]

I was wonderin' if they still indulged in them lively fam'ly debates, and
how soon I'd have to begin dodgin' dishes; but they sits down across the
table fr