the same
time wreathing her arm about the waist of her dear companion. "Come
on, Vivian; let's go get our wraps," and the girls, leaving "Billy" and
Mr. Turner together, scurried away.

The two young men looked at each other dubiously, though each had an
earnest desire to please. They groped for human understanding, and
suddenly that clammy, discouraged feeling spread its muffling wall
between them. Billy was the first to recover in part.

"Charming weather, isn't it?" he observed with a polite smile.

Mr. Turner opined that it was, the while delving into Mr. Westlake's
mental workshop and finding it completely devoid of tools, patterns or
lumber.

"The girls are just going to take me over to bowl," Mr. Turner ventured
desperately after a while. "Do you bowl very much?"

"Oh, I usually fill in," stated Mr. Westlake; "but really, I'm a very
poor hand at it. I seem to be a poor hand at most everything," and he
laughed with engaging candor, as if somehow this were creditable.

The conversation thereupon lagged for a moment or two, while Mr. Turner
blankly asked himself: "What in thunder _does_ a man talk about when he
has nothing to say and nobody to say it to?" Presently he solved the
problem.

"It must be beautiful out here in the autumn," he observed.

"Yes, it is indeed," returned Mr. Westlake with alacrity. "The leaves
turn all sorts of colors."

Once more conversation lagged, while Billy feebly wondered how any
person could possibly be so dull as this chap. He made another attempt.

"Beastly place, though, when it rains," he observed.

"Yes, I should imagine so," agreed Mr. Turner. Great Scott! The voice
of McComas saved him from utter imbecility.

"You'll excuse Mr. Turner a moment, won't you, Billy?" begged McComas
pleasantly. "I want to introduce him to a couple of friends of mine."

Billy Westlake bowed his forgiveness of Mr. McComas with fully as much
relief as Sam Turner had felt. Over in the same corner of the porch
where he had sat in the afternoon with McComas and Princeman and the
elder Westlake, Sam found awaiting them Mr. Cuthbert, of the American
Papier-Mache Company, an almost viciously ugly man with a twisted nose
and a crooked mouth, who controlled practically all the worth-while
papier-mache business of the United States, and Mr. Blackrock, an
elderly man with a young toupee and particularly gaunt cheek-bones, who
was a corporation lawyer of considerable note. Both gentlem