arm and whirled him about to stand with his
back to hers.

"There!" said the flapper tensely, her eyes staring ahead. "There!"

"You're scrooching!" accused the Demon.

"Not a bit!--and see how square his shoulders are!" She turned to point
out this grace of the animal.

"Ever take any drugs? Ever get any habits like that?" queried the Demon.
Plainly Bean's confession to an unusual virtue had aroused her
suspicion. He might be a drug fiend!

He faltered wretchedly, wishing Breede would send for him.

"I--well, I used to be made to take sulphur and molasses every
spring ... but I never kept it up after I left home."

"Hum!" said the old lady, looking as if he could tell a lot more if he
chose.

She gripped one of his biceps. He was not ashamed of these. The night
and morning drill with that home exerciser had told, even though he was
not yet so impressive as the machine's inventor, who, in magazine
advertisements, looked down so fondly upon his own flexed arm.

"For goodness' sake!" exclaimed the Demon respectfully.

Bean thrilled at this, feeling like a primitive brute of the cave times,
accustomed to subduing women by force.

After that they seemed tacitly to agree that they would pretend to show
him over the "grounds." Bean hated the grounds, which were worried to
the last square inch into a chilling formality, and the big glass
conservatory was stifling, like an overcrowded, overheated auditorium.
And he knew they were "drawing him out." They looked meaningly at each
other whenever he spoke.

They questioned him about his early life, but learned only that his
father had been "engaged in the express business." He was ably reticent.

Did he believe that women ought to be classed legally with drunkards,
imbeciles and criminals? He did not, if you came down to that. Let them
vote if they wanted to. He had other things to think about, more
important. He didn't care much, either way. Voting didn't do any good.

He had taken the ideal attitude to enrage the woman suffragist. She will
respect opposition. Careless indifference she cannot brook. Grandma
opened upon him and battered him to a pulpy mass. Within the half hour
he was supinely promising to remind her to give him a badge before he
left; and there was further talk of his marching at the next parade as a
member of the Men's League for Woman's Suffrage, or, at the very least,
in the column of Men Sympathizers.

He wondered, wondered! Were they trying