Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/90

80 attire befitting a call on a rib, as he expressed it, who could bed her ponies down in bank-notes if she had a mind to. When he appeared before Teddie, accordingly, he did so in oxblood shoes and light tan gloves and a close-fitting "college" suit that translated him into anything but a knight of brawn.

"Mr. Dorgan," promptly began Teddie, with a quietness which was merely a mask to her inner excitement, "I'm in a very great difficulty and I've been wondering if you'd be willing to help me out of it."

"What's the trouble, lady?" asked Gunboat, a little stiff and embarrassed in his Sunday best as he gazed at her out of an honest but guarded eye. For the knights of the ring, in their own world and in their own way, have many advances of the softer sex to withstand and many blandishments of the rose-sheathed enemy to be wary of.

But Teddie was direct enough, once she was under way.

"I've just been insulted in this studio by a brute who calls himself a man, intolerably and atrociously insulted."