She hadn’t lighted a cigarette for forty seconds!
She got one going immediately and as she puffed voraciously at her fag watched with keen pleasure the furrows gather on her brother’s small patch of sun-kissed brow.
Within two minutes, quite suddenly for him, Lord Tawdry drew a revolver.
“Not to—to hint nothin’, Verbie,” he said “but you are to come back to the hotel with me directly. Directly, do you hear?”
He looked at her impressively and shot at a camel. He hit a palm tree.
“I say you know!” he said and stared at his weapon stupidly. “I never——”
He shot again. This time at the palm tree. But the camel neatly ducked.
Verbeena smiled and started another cigarette. She went over to the camel, rubbed its clever nose, brought out her gold-lined case and fed the camel a ciggy too.
Then she turned toward her brother—turned with boyish abandon and hauteur, of course—and spoke. Speaking she said:
“That will be about all from you, Tawd. Pack your gat.”