Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/33

Rh poor old "Carnation Bud" who always wore a pink in his button-hole, on parade, and prided himself on being as neat a dresser as Robert Hilliard himself.

I can see now that they were all cheap and tawdry and pathetic, those foolish old creeds and vanities of Bud's. But there was a time when they stood for nothing but splendor to me, just as there's an earlier time when a crimson Noah's Ark can mean grandeur and a string of coral can spell wealth. For Bud, that afternoon on Sixth Avenue when he stepped into my life, stood for everything that was princely and resplendent. Myrtle Menchen, who'd been exploring that third-rate department store with me, so weakened before a kolinsky pillow-muff that she calmly walked away from the fur-counter with the muff in her hand. But Myrtle, I found out later, had overlooked the minor detail of paying for it. When she got to the swing-doors and saw the store "flyman" on her trail, she said "Hold this, Baddie, till I button me coat!" In other words, she unloaded on me and discreetly melted away. And there I stood, with that stolen muff in my hand and that store flyman with his hand on my shoulder, when Carnation Bud came pushing through the crowd.