The girls were delighted. They called upon him for song after song, until Arthur, pulling out his watch, said abruptly, "It is time to be going," and went to untie the horses.
Amid hearty hand-shakings and cordial invitations to call again soon, Checkers said good-by, and climbed into the buggy as Arthur drove up.
Down the driveway, out upon the moon-lit road, they sat in silence. Each was busy with his own thoughts. Arthur cut the horses viciously from time to time for no apparent reason. Checkers smoked a cigarette as though altogether pleased with himself. Arthur finally broke the spell. "Well," he exclaimed, with a rising inflection.
"A nice line of girls. Miss Barlow's 'Class A'" answered Checkers. "The other one is all right, too; but she 's just a few chips shy on looks."
"Looks are not the only thing in the world," snapped Arthur; "beauty's only skin deep."
"It might improve some of our friends a little to skin 'em, then, if that's so," laughed Checkers. "That reminds me," he continued musingly, "of what a friend of mine, 'Push' Miller, told me once. He said he never in his life ran across two pretty girls that trotted together. If one of 'em was a queen, her partner was safe to be about a nine-spot. He figured that the pretty one used the other as a kind of foil, while the homely one trailed along to get in on the excess trade which the pretty one drew, and turned over to her."
As Arthur neither laughed at, nor replied to, this sally, Checkers concluded he had a grouch, and left him to his own devices.
That night, upon going to bed, the girls, as was natural, had compared notes, and quickly discovered the apparent discrepancy between Checkers' statement to Mrs. Barlow, and the story Arthur had related to Pert.
"I am sorry to know that Mr. Campbell has told a deliberate lie," said Pert, "but there is some excuse for him, after all, for any other explanation would have been embarrassing."
"Oh, a little thing like a lie or two does n't stand in the way of the average man," said Sadie.