"Give you five minutes to dress," he said, as he stepped outside the summer-house, the pajamas tucked under his arm.
Pete dressed on the edge of the bluff, putting on one suit of pajamas over another, and keeping a wary eye for possible intruders. So concerned was he lest they be discovered that he was unaware, until he had finished dressing, that his outer covering consisted of the coat of one suit and the trousers of another. The coat was striped in purple and green, the trousers in a delicate shade of salmon pink. But the effect did not dismay him; rather, it appealed to his sense of color.
As he approached the summer-house he saw an apparition in the doorway. Mary Wayne had taken his advice; she had piled it on.
"Jehosaphat!" he exclaimed in a low voice. "You look like something out of Rider Haggard, or grand opera, or—— Why, you're barbaric!"
"Isn't it awful!" she whispered.
"Awful? Why, it's magnificent! You're not dressed—you're arrayed! You're a poem, a ballad—a romance! You're a queen of Egypt; you're something from the next world! You're—oh, baby!"
He spread his hands and salaamed.
"Hush, for Heaven's sake! I just can't wear this. It's impossible!"
"You're a hasheesh dream," he murmured.