to think it over. He named over to himself those
friends on whom he might call, and then his mind paused as Betty
Medill's name hazily and sorrowfully occurred to him. He had a
sentimental thought. He would ask her. Their love affair was over, but
she could not refuse this last request. Surely it was not much to
ask--to help him keep up his end of social obligation for one short
night. And if she insisted, she could be the front part of the camel
and he would go as the back. His magnanimity pleased him. His mind
even turned to rosy-colored dreams of a tender reconciliation inside
the camel--there hidden away from all the world....

"Now you'd better decide right off."

The bourgeois voice of Mrs. Nolak broke in upon his mellow fancies and
roused him to action. He went to the phone and called up the Medill
house. Miss Betty was out; had gone out to dinner.

Then, when all seemed lost, the camel's back wandered curiously into
the store. He was a dilapidated individual with a cold in his head and
a general trend about him of downwardness. His cap was pulled down low
on his head, and his chin was pulled down low on his chest, his coat
hung down to his shoes, he looked run-down, down at the heels,
and--Salvation Army to the contrary--down and out. He said that he was
the taxicab-driver that the gentleman had hired at the Clarendon
Hotel. He had been instructed to wait outside, but he had waited some
time, and a suspicion had grown upon him that the gentleman had gone
out the back way with purpose to defraud him--gentlemen sometimes
did--so he had come in. He sank down onto the three-legged stool.

"Wanta go to a party?" demanded Perry sternly.

"I gotta work," answered the taxi-driver lugubriously. "I gotta keep
my job."

"It's a very good party."

"'S a very good job."

"Come on!" urged Perry. "Be a good fella. See--it's pretty!" He held
the camel up and the taxi-driver looked at it cynically.

"Huh!"

Perry searched feverishly among the folds of the cloth.

"See!" he cried enthusiastically, holding up a selection of folds.
"This is your part. You don't even have to talk. All you have to do is
to walk--and sit down occasionally. You do all the sitting down. Think
of it. I'm on my feet all the time and _you_ can sit down some of
the time. The only time _I_ can sit down is when we're lying
down, and you can sit down when--oh, any time. See?"

"What's 'at thing?" demanded the individual dubiously. "A shroud?"