"Come on, now, just this one," said Baxter coaxingly. "It won't hurt. There's always room for one more."
What a temptation it was for the muscular policeman to swing around and shake the miserable wretch as one would a cur!
But Bobbie had learned the value of controlling his temper; that is one of the first requisites of a policeman's as well as of an army man's life.
"Do you know, Mr. Baxter," said Lorna, after she had yielded to the insistence of her companion, "that cocktail makes me a little dizzy. I guess it will take me a long while to get used to such drinks. You know, I've been brought up in an awfully old-fashioned way. My father would simply kill me if he thought I drank beer—and as for cocktails and highballs and horse's necks, and all those real drinks ... well, I hate to think of it. Ha! ha!"
And she laughed in a silly way which made Burke know that she was beginning to feel the effect.
"I wonder if I hadn't better assert myself right now?" he mused, pretending to eat a morsel. "It would cause a commotion, but it would teach her a lesson, and would teach her father to keep a closer watch."
Just then he heard his own name mentioned by the girl behind.
"Say, Mr. Baxter, you came just at the right time to-night. That Burke who was calling on father is a stupid policeman, whom he met in the hospital, and I was being treated to a regular sermon about life and wickedness and a lot of tiresome rot. I don't like policemen, do you?"
"I should say not!" was Baxter's heartfelt answer.
They were silent an instant.