well," says she, "Mrs. Wigghorn's a good natured soul, and I do
think the Duke might have stood her for an afternoon. He wouldn't
though, and now I've got to go there and call it off, just as she's got
herself into her diamond stomacher, probably, to receive them."

"You couldn't ring in a couple of subs?" says I. For a minute Sadie's
blue eyes lights up like I'd passed her a plate of peach ice cream.
"If I only could!" says she. Then she shakes her head. "No," she
says, "I should hate to lie. And, anyway, there's no one within reach
who could play their parts."

"That bein' the case," says I, "it looks like you'd have to go ahead
and break the sad news. What do you want me to do--hold a bucket for
the tears?"

Sadie said all she expected of me was to help her forget it afterwards;
so we rolls along towards Wigghorn Arms. We'd got within a mile of
there when we meets a Greek peddler with a bunch of toy balloons on his
shoulder, and in less'n no time at all them crazy-quilt ponies was
tryin' to do back somersaults and other fool stunts. In the mix up one
of 'em rips a shoe almost off, and Mr. Coachman says he'll have to
chase back to a blacksmith shop and have it glued on.

"Oh, bother!" says Sadie. "Well, hurry up about it. We'll walk along
as far as Apawattuck Inn and wait there."

It wa'n't much of a walk. The Apawattuck's a place where they deal out
imitation shore dinners to trolley excursionists, and fusel oil high
balls to the bubble trade. The name sounds well enough, but that ain't
satisfyin' when you're real hungry. We were only killin' time, though,
so it didn't matter. We strolled up just as fearless as though their
clam chowders was fit to eat.

And that's what fetched us up against the Tortonis. They was well
placed, at a corner veranda table where no one could miss seein' 'em;
and, as they'd just finished a plate of chicken salad and a pint of
genuine San Jose claret, they was lookin' real comfortable and elegant.

Say, to see the droop eyed way they sized us up as we makes our entry,
you'd think they was so tired doin' that sort of thing that life was
hardly worth while. You'd never guess they'd been livin' in a hall bed
room on crackers and bologna ever since the season closed, and that
this was their first real feed of the summer, on the strength of just
havin' been booked for fifty performances. He was wearin' one of them
torrid suits you see in Max Blumstein's show window, wit