ists and ankles. His shirt was ox-blood; his collar winged and
tall; his necktie a floating oriflamme [102]; his shoes a venomous
bright tan, pointed and shaped on penitential lasts. A little flat
straw hat with a striped band desecrated his weather-beaten head.
Lemon-coloured kid gloves protected his oak-tough hands from the
benignant May sunshine. This sad and optic-smiting creature teetered
out of its den, smiling foolishly and smoothing its gloves for men and
angels to see. To such a pass had Dry Valley Johnson been brought by
Cupid, who always shoots game that is out of season with an arrow from
the quiver of Momus. Reconstructing mythology, he had risen, a prismatic
macaw, from the ashes of the grey-brown phoenix that had folded its
tired wings to roost under the trees of Santa Rosa.

[FOOTNOTE 102: oriflamme--the red-orange flag of the Abbey St.
Denis, used as a standard by early French kings]

Dry Valley paused in the street to allow Santa Rosans within sight of
him to be stunned; and then deliberately and slowly, as his shoes
required, entered Mrs. O'Brien's gate.

Not until the eleven months' drought did Santa Rosa cease talking
about Dry Valley Johnson's courtship of Panchita O'Brien. It was
an unclassifiable procedure; something like a combination of
cake-walking, deaf-and-dumb oratory, postage stamp flirtation and
parlour charades. It lasted two weeks and then came to a sudden end.

Of course Mrs. O'Brien favoured the match as soon as Dry Valley's
intentions were disclosed. Being the mother of a woman child, and
therefore a charter member of the Ancient Order of the Rat-trap [103],
she joyfully decked out Panchita for the sacrifice. The girl was
temporarily dazzled by having her dresses lengthened and her hair
piled up on her head, and came near forgetting that she was only a
slice of cheese. It was nice, too, to have as good a match as Mr.
Johnson paying you attentions and to see the other girls fluttering
the curtains at their windows to see you go by with him.

[FOOTNOTE 103: Rat-trap--O. Henry was married twice, once in his
twenties (she died a few years after they were
married) and again near the end of his life. Both
marriages were somewhat stormy, and he often
complained that marriage was too confining.]

Dry Valley bought a buggy with yellow wheels and a fine trotter in San
Antonio. Ev