Bill stuck his thumbs in his faded old shirt comically. Even slumped down in his chair as he was, the suggestion of a harmless swagger was in his manner—the easy swagger of one who, hitherto unconsidered, has astonished the skeptics by giving birth to an idea and solving a problem. There was something about Bill that suppressed the gentle but none the less amused smile that was dimpling Millie's cheeks.
"Out with it, daddy!" she demanded, restraining a desire to pull his ear.
"If Lem Townsend is so anxious to help us," he stated, "he can arrange all the details for you, mother. I 'ain't got time for details—that's what I told Grant once, when we was havin' supper before Petersburg. Got enough to do with the idea. Lem can put the ads. in them Reno papers, an' hire the maids for you, an' things like that." Then Bill suddenly stopped, hugely enjoying the mystification of his two listeners.
His wife sat up. "Bill Jones," she said, "you been drinking again down to town, that's what I think!"
"Go on, daddy!" Millie encouraged, putting her hand on his arm. "I feel that you've thought of something! Tell us!"
Ignoring his wife's accusation, Bill gave Millie a grateful glance and resumed, in his slow drawl:
"I got an idea—sure enough, mother an' Millie! It didn't hit me until I was half-way home to-day, but I got it lookin' at the mornin' train what goes on through to Reno. I've looked at a pile o' trains in my time, but I never got no idea from 'em before. Look here, don't the state line run plumb through the middle o' this house, so's half of it is in California an' the other half in Nevada? Well, what's the matter with makin' this house a hotel temporary for busted hearts what takes six months to cure? Lots o' them rich folks from the East who goes on down to Reno to git divorced would like to live on the lake, but they can't because they got to live in Nevada for six months. They can live on one side o' this house an' be in Nevada. An' at the same time they gits all the good o' livin' in California! They'd be tickled to death an' they'd be comin' in shoals all year, winter an' summer. An' what they pays ain't nothin' to them—the Reno hotels is so rich off them they don't want to take in no one what 'ain't a busted heart! You better start right away gettin' ready, mother!"
Mrs. Jones and Millie gasped. Bill, however, having spoken at considerable length for him, merely reached for his eternal bag of tobacco and paper and idly rolled himself a cigarette.
Millie clapped her hands. "Why, mother!" she cried, "daddy's right—it is an idea! And so simple!"
"All big things is simple," Bill remarked, with the air of one who ought to know.