Page:Wilson - Bunker bean.djvu/65

Rh a flapper, but the old one's a peacherine for looks. Go on, lamp her once!"

Bean turned his diffident gaze upon the occupants of the tonneau with a sudden wild dream that he would stare insolently. But his eyes unaccountably came to rest in the eyes of the young one—the flapper. He saw only the eyes, and he felt that the eyes were seeing him. The motor chugged slowly up Broadway, nosing for a path about a slowly driven truck; the flapper looked back.

"Not half bad, that!" said Bean, recovering, and speaking in what he felt was the correct Bulger tone.

"Not for mine," said Bulger firmly. "Big sister, though, not so worse. Met up with her one time out to the country place, takin' stuff for the old man the time he got kidneys in his feet. I made a hit with her, too, on the level, but say! nothin' doing there for old John W. me! I dropped the thing like it was poison ivy. Me doin' the nuptial in a family like that, and bein' under Pop's thumb the rest of my life? Ask me, that's all; ask me! Wake me up any time in the night and ask me."

Again Bean was thrilled, resolving then and there that no daughter of Breede's should ever wed him. Bulger was entirely right. It wouldn't do. Bulger looked at his watch.

"Well, s'long; got a date down in the next block. She's out at five. Say, I want you to get a flash at her some day. Broadway car,