CHAPTER VIII
THE ORCHID BROOCH
“Why don’t we begin on the eats?” demanded Billy McGraw. “I am starving in the sight of plenty.”
“He is always that way,” said Tim Turner. “Ever since the time in the trenches there has been no satisfying Billy. Bet anything the trenches will be filled up and leveled over before Billy is filled up.”
“Well, I hope they will be leveled over before I am,” laughed Billy, good-naturedly. “It’s so Miss Wright, I can even eat beans and stew, two things at which most of the returned soldiers balk. Still no one answers me—why do we wait?”
“We are waiting for Danny,” blushed Mary Louise. “He had to leave for a few moments.”
“Tut, tut! Don’t begin by spoiling him.”
“But you couldn’t spoil Danny,” insisted his loyal little fiancée. “I don’t know what he went out for, but I am sure he had some unselfish reason.”
“You can’t spoil me either,” pleaded Billy.
“Any more than you can gild the lily or paint the rose. You are already in a state of decomposition,” put in Tim.