t have cared less. They
bellowed, and pawed the earth, and threw their shoes around, and yawned,
and stretched and discussed their plans for the next day, and reviewed
all their doings of that day. Then one of them said something about
turning in, and I was so happy I forgot to snore. Just then another key
clanged at the door, in walked a fat man in a brown suit and a brown
derby, and stuff was off."

"That," said Emma McChesney, "would be Ed Meyers, of the Strauss
Sans-silk Skirt Company."

"None other than our hero." Jock's tone had an added acidity. "It took
those four about two minutes to get acquainted. In three minutes they
had told their real names, and it turned out that Meyers belonged to an
organization that was a second cousin of the Bisons. In five minutes
they had got together a deck and a pile of chips and were shirt-sleeving
it around a game of pinochle. I would doze off to the slap of cards, and
the click of chips, and wake up when the bell-boy came in with another
round, which he did every six minutes. When I got up this morning I
found that Fat Ed Meyers had been sitting on the chair over which I
trustingly had draped my trousers. This sunburst of wrinkles is where he
mostly sat. This spot on my coat is where a Bison drank his beer."

Emma McChesney folded her paper and rose, smiling. "It is sort of
trying, I suppose, if you're not used to it."

"Used to it!" shouted the outraged Jock. "Used to it! Do you mean to
tell me there's nothing unusual about----"

"Not a thing. Oh, of course you don't strike a bunch of Bisons every
day. But it happens a good many times. The world is full of Ancient
Orders and they're everlastingly getting together and drawing up
resolutions and electing officers. Don't you think you'd better go in to
breakfast before the Bisons begin to forage? I've had mine."

The gloom which had overspread Jock McChesney's face lifted a little.
The hungry boy in him was uppermost. "That's so. I'm going to have some
wheat cakes, and steak, and eggs, and coffee, and fruit, and toast, and
rolls."

"Why slight the fish?" inquired his mother. Then, as he turned toward
the dining-room, "I've two letters to get out. Then I'm going down the
street to see a customer. I'll be up at the Sulzberg-Stein department
store at nine sharp. There's no use trying to see old Sulzberg before
ten, but I'll be there, anyway, and so will Ed Meyers, or I'm no skirt
salesman. I want you to meet me there. It wi