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64 “Five thousand? Ah, yes!” And Angie, opening a tin box she always wore about her neck, proudfully displayed her precious hoard of burnt matches. “I thought, when we were married we might stuff a mattress with them—”

But already Mr. Frimp was transformed with rage and disappointedness. With one scornful gest he had torn off his pink pantaloons. Blush not, ladies, underneath was a purple accordion-plated skirt reaching far, far below the hips. Another wrench—like a monkey wrench it was—and his coat and vest came off, and Angie saw, rather than felt, an orange blouse. The silk hat bounced off his head; and from it, Mr. no longer, a female Frimp extracted a green picture hat and set it angrily athwart her head.

It was now the mercenary stenographer from the Spaghetti Company who was no longer there. She was borne away on a despairing sigh. And you would sigh, too, wouldn’t you, if you had had to keep company with a whiting like Angie for a month, free, and pay your own expenses?