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 marked enthusiasm. "Pink Davis! Lord, I'm glad to see you! How's the boy?"

The boy, it developed, was in excellent health and spirits. He and Jock shook hands with that weird complication of fingers that betokens a fraternal alliance, then retreated to a divan and called for ginger ale, not because they cared at all for ginger ale but because they cared even less for the acrid taste of bootleg whiskey au naturel.

"Didn't expect to see you till four," chattered Pink. "Wasn't that what you wired—four o'clock sharp, here in the lobby? Say, by the way, I ran into Dopey Lane and Bill Olmstead down in the grill a while ago, eating to beat hell so they could catch the noon train, and I told 'em to wait over and you'd take 'em down too in your bus. Hope you've got room."

"Plenty," said Jock promptly. "It's a roadster, but it's held ten in its day. Might as well make this a good trip"

"Sure," agreed Pink. "That's what I thought. Drink and be merry for tomorrow we compulsory-chapel. Well, ole hoss, what kind of a summer did you have?"

Exchange of confidences, Pink's somewhat lurid, Jock's characteristically restrained, occupied the next hour. Then Jock got into his roadster again and returned to Park Avenue. From believing that twelve-fifteen was too early he now became panic-stricken for fear one-thirty was too late, and began to dart in perilous zigzags through the traffic in an effort to get ahead. He was scolded by a policeman and sworn at by several taxi-drivers. His relief when the man at the switchboard in the imposing apartment house told him Miss Mountford was in and expecting him approached ecstasy.