They dallied with pink ices and French pastries, and he loudly requested the best cigar in the place.
"It's all in knowin' how to live," he explained. "I've been all over the woild, and there ain't much I don't know or ain't seen; but you gotta know the right way to go about things."
"Anybody could tell by looking at you that you are a man of the world," said Miss Gertrude.
It was eleven o'clock when they entered the car for the homeward spin. The cool air blew color and verve into her face; and her hair, responding to the night damp, curled in little grape-vine tendrils round her face.
"You're some swell little goil," remarked Mr. Barker, a cigar hung idle from one corner of his mouth.
"And you are some driver!" she retorted. "You run a car like a real chauffeur."
"I wouldn't own a car if I couldn't run it myself," he said. "I ran this car all through France last fall. There ain't no fun bein' steered like a mollycoddle."
"No one could ever accuse you of being a mollycoddle, Mr. Barker."
He turned and loosened the back of her seat until it reclined like a Morris chair. "My own invention," he said; "to lie back and watch the stars on a clear night sort of—of gives you a hunch what's goin' on up there."
She looked at him in some surprise. "You're clever, all right," she said, rather seriously.