his newly
discovered friend; for while Claire was finishing dinner, a solemn young
man was watching her through a window.

She was at a table for six. She was listening to a man of thirty in
riding-breeches, a stock, and a pointed nose, who bowed to her every
time he spoke, which was so frequently that his dining gave the
impression of a man eating grape-fruit on a merry-go-round. Back in
Schoenstrom, fortified by Mac and the bunch at the Old Home Lunch, Milt
would have called the man a "dude," and--though less noisily than the
others--would have yelped, "Get onto Percy's beer-bottle pants. What's
he got his neck bandaged for? Bet he's got a boil."

But now Milt yearned, "He does look swell. Wish I could get away with
those things. Wouldn't I look like a fool with my knees buttoned up,
though! And there's two other fellows in dress suits. Wouldn't mind
those so much. Gee, it must be awful where you've got so many suits of
trick clothes you don't know which one to wear.

"That fellow and Claire are talking pretty swift. He doesn't need any
piston rings, that lad. Wonder--wonder what they're talking about?
Music, I guess, and books and pictures and scenery. He's saying that no
tongue or pen can describe the glories of the Park, and then he's trying
to describe 'em. And maybe they know the same folks in New York. Lord,
how I'd be out of it. I wish----"

Milt made a toothpick out of a match, decided that toothpicks were
inelegant in his tragic mood, and longed: "Never did see her among her
own kind of folks till now. I wish I could jabber about music and stuff.
I'll learn it. I will! I can! I picked up autos in three months. I----
Milt, you're a dub. I wonder can they be talking French, maybe, or Wop,
or something? I could get onto the sedan styles in highbrow talk as long
as it was in American.

"I could probably spring linen-collar stuff about, 'Really a delightful
book, so full of delightful characters,' if I stuck by the rhetoric
books long enough. But once they begin the _parlez-vous, oui, oui_, I'm
a gone goose. Still, by golly, didn't I pick up Dutch--German--like a
mice? Back off, son! You did not! You can talk Plattdeutsch something
grand, as long as you keep the verbs and nouns in American. You got a
nice character, Milt, but you haven't got any parts of speech.

"Now look at Percy! Taking a bath in a finger-bowl. I never could pull
that finger-bowl stuff; pinning your ears back and jiu-jitsing the fried
c