"Sure, mister," the man said sadly. "Why not? A day in the country would suit me fine. You can have the bus and me for whatever you want to offer, and you can bring along all the friends you want."
Marc fatefully handed over a couple of bills and glanced, not without apprehension, down the street. "The others should be along any moment now," he said. He turned to Toffee. "Just how are we going to explain all these people to Julie. We can't just say I asked them out for dinner."
"Well, then," Toffee said, "we'll just say you're a group of botany students on a field trip." As though that satisfactorily explained everything she started into the bus. "Heigh, ho! Oh, for a day of biology in the open air!"
"I thought you said botany," Marc said, uneasily.
"One can always hope," she said grandly.
True to his word, Hotstuff was back almost instantly, trailing after him a cast of characters the likes of which is rarely seen on the streets before sundown. The men, five of them in all, were heavy-browed and flashily dressed. Their female counterparts—or molls, as Hotstuff had described them—were so unanimous in their endorsement of low necklines, high heels, dyed hair and ankle bracelets that they seemed almost to be in uniform.
At the approach of this strange swarming, Marc lowered his glasses only to replace them even a bit more quickly than was entirely necessary.
"Good Lord!" he groaned. "It looks like Saturday night at the police lineup."
At that moment, however, Hotstuff arrived at the front of the bus, his questionable companions crowding close behind him.
"These is some of my best chums," he announced with beaming pride. "I would introduce you to them only they don't like their names mentioned." He drew forward a crimson-lipped creature who had crossed the street close to his side.