ou for a sign. Lookin' as you
do now, you could go to any one night stand in the country and be
handed the New York papers without sayin' a word. What I want to know,
though, is how it happened?"

"Happen?" says he. "Shorty, such things don't come by accident. You
buy 'em. You go through torture for 'em."

"Say, Hank," says I, "you don't mean to say you've been up against the
skinologists?"

Well, he had. They'd kept his face in a steam box by the hour,
scrubbed him with pumice stone, electrocuted his lip fringe, made him
wear a sleepin' mask, and done everything but peel him alive.

"Look at that for a paw!" says he. "Ain't it lady-like?"

It was. Every fingernail showed the half moon, and the palm was as
soft as a baby's.

"You must have been makin' a business of it," says I. "How long has
this thing been goin' on?"

"Nearly four months," says Hank, heavin' a groan. "Part of that time I
put in five hours a day; but I've got 'em scaled down to two now. It's
been awful, Shorty, but it had to be done."

"How was that?" says I.

"On Reney's account," says he. "She's powerful peart at savvyin'
things, Reney is. Why, when we struck town I was wearin' a leather
trimmed hat and eatin' with my knife, just as polite as I knew how. We
hadn't been here a day before she saw that something was wrong.
'Hank,' says she, 'this ain't where we belong. Let's go back.'--'What
for?' says I.--'Shucks!' says she. 'Can't you see? These folks are
different from us. Look at 'em!' Well, I did, and it made me mad.
'Reney,' says I,' I'll allow there is something wrong with us, but I
reckon it ain't bone deep. There's such a thing as burnin' one brand
over another, ain't there? Suppose we give it a whirl?' That's what
we done too, and I'm beginnin' to suspicion we've made good."

"I guess you have, Hank," says I; "but ain't it expensive? You haven't
gone broke to do it, have you?"

"Broke!" says he, smilin'. "Guess you ain't heard what they're takin'
out of the Jayhawker these days. Why, I couldn't spend it all if I had
four hands. But come on. Let's find Reney and go to a show,
somewheres."

Course, seein' Hank had kind of prepared me for a change in Mrs.
Merrity; so I braces myself for the shock and tries to forget the
wrapper and carpet slippers. But you know the kind of birds that roost
along Peacock Alley? There was a double row of 'em holdin' down the
arm chairs on either side of the corridor, and