"I am Jimmy Jones," said the second man. "I was a bartender in little old Chi. Far cry from a missionary to a bartender, but I'll take my chances on Paradise with Thompson any day."
"A—a bartender." Carol rubbed her slender fingers in bewilderment.
"I am Arnold Barrows, formerly a Latin professor. Amo, mas, mat," said the third man suddenly. "I am looking for my Paradise right here on earth, and I am sorry you are married. My idea of Paradise is a girl like you and a man like me, and everything else go hang."
Carol drew herself up as though poised for flight, a startled bird taking wing.
Thompson and Jones laughed at her horrified face, but the professor maintained his solemn gravity.
"He is just a fool," said the bartender encouragingly. "Don't bother about him. It is not you in particular, he is nuts on all the girls. Cheer up. We're not so bad as we sound. I have a cottage near you. Tell the parson I'll be in to-morrow to give him the latest light on the bonfires in perdition. I know all about them. Tell him we'll organize a combination prayer-meeting; he can lead the prayer and I'll give advanced lessons in bunny-hugs and fancy-fizzes."
"Good night,—good night,—good night," gasped Carol.
Forgetting her errand to the office, she rushed back to David, to safety, to the sheltering folds of the little white cottage tent.
He questioned her curiously about her experience, and although she tried to evade the harsher points, he drew every word from her reluctant lips.
"Lunger,—and bugs,—and chasers,—it doesn't sound nice, David."