Page:Bad Girl (1929).pdf/258

 "A lot of junk. Where our parents were born, our names and ages and what we named the kid and the address of our house and—"

"Say, Dot, what did you name the kid?"

"What did I name him? Eddie, of course. What did you think?"

"Eddie!"

"Well, Edward."

"Aw, Dot, you shouldn't have done that. That's an awful name. Say, Dot, I think I'll run down and get a smoke. Why didn't you name him something fancy like Theodore or Calvin?"

He rushed out of the room then. Mrs. Vernon, standing near the window, laughed a little.

"Heavens," she said. "Your husband certainly hates that baby. He drops a tear at even having it for a namesake." She laughed again.

"Huh?" said Dot.

Eddie did not return at once. Dot suspected that he had gone to get her a magazine. While he was away, some one came to see Mrs. Vernon—the first visitor she had had, so far as Dot knew.

He was a tall slim man with gray eyes that fixed themselves reproachfully on the red-haired girl. In the same baseless way that she reminded Dot of the girl in the bright blue slicker, so did her visitor call to Dot's mind the man who had gleaned so much satisfaction from mentioning bootleggers' mistresses. Much as all Martians would look alike to us till we grew accustomed to any strange physical features they might have, so did all members of the tribe who never appear self-conscious and who are careless about the impression they leave seemed to Dot to be cut from two standard models. One for males and one for females.