nd out. It didn't take me more'n a minute to see that
if Zylphina has got to the stage where she wears pony jackets and rides
in expensive bubbles, our little pie counter romance is headed for the
ash can.

"Stung in both eyes!" says I under my breath, and falls back.

"Well, well!" says Zylphina, holdin' out three fingers. "When did you
hit Broadway, Wilbur?"

It was all up to Cobb then. He drifts up to the tonneau and gathers in
the fingers dazed like, as if he was walkin' in his sleep; but he gets
out somethin' about bein' mighty glad to see her again.

Zylphina sizes him up kind of curious, and smiles. "You must let me
introduce you to my friend," says she. "Roland, this is Mr. Cobb, from
Kansas."

Mr. Shuffer grins too, as he swaps grips with Wilbur. It was a great
joke.

"He's awfully nice to me, Roland is," says Zylphina, with a giggle.
"And ain't this a swell car, though? Roland takes me to my boardin'
house in it 'most every night. But how are the corn and hogs doin',
Wilbur?"

Say, there was a topic Wilbur was up on. He throws her a grateful grin
and proceeds to unlimber his conversation works. He tells Zylphina how
many acres he put into corn last spring, how much it shucked to the
acre, and how many head of hogs he has just sent to the ham and lard
lab'ratory. That brand of talk sounds kind of foolish there under the
arc lights; but Zylphina pricks up her ears.

"Ten carloads of hogs!" says she. "Is that a kid, or are you just
havin' a dream?"

"I cal'late it'll be twenty next fall," says he, fishin' for somethin'
in his pocket. "Here's the packing house receipts for the ten, anyway."

"Let's see," says she, and by the way she skins her eye over them
documents you could tell that Zylphina'd seen the like before. Also
she was somethin' of a ready reckoner.

"Oh, Wilbur!" says she, makin' a flyin' leap and landin' with her arms
around his neck. "I'm yours, Wilbur, I'm yours!"

And Wilbur, he gathers her in.

"Roland," says I, steppin' up to the shuffer, "you can crank up.
Hoxie's won out in the tenth."

XIX

AT HOME WITH THE DILLONS

I was expectin' to put in a couple of days doin' the sad and lonely,
Sadie havin' made a date to run out to Rocky wold for the week end; but
Friday night when I'm let off at the seventh floor of the
Perzazzer--and say, no matter how many flights up home is, there's no
place like it--who should I see but Sadie, just takin' off her hat.
Ac