Miss Elsham produced a silver cigarette case, lighted up, and exhaled twin streams of smoke from a shapely nose. “Shoot!” she counseled.
Mern, after his slow fashion, fumbled with the sheets of Miss Kennard’s manuscript.
Miss Elsham thriftily utilized the moments allowed her by Mern’s hesitation. She always tried to impress a client favorably. “I don’t presume to pick and choose when it comes to cases,” she informed Craig. “I’m an All-for-the-good-cause Anne! But I hope—I’m allowed to hope, I suppose—I do hope that my next one is going to remember some of the lessons he learned at mother’s knee. The last one had forgotten everything. I was dragged through cafés till at the present time a red-shaded table lamp and a menu card make me want to bite holes in any man with a napkin over his arm. I’ve danced to jazz and listened to cabaret——”
Mern was trying to say something, but she rattled on: “And that flask on his hip—he must have done all his breathing while he was asleep; he never allowed time enough between drinks while he was awake.”
“The next one is different,” stated Mern.
“Much obliged! But of course it’s cafés again and——”
Mern sliced off her complaints, chopping his flat hand to and fro in the air. “Nothing to it, sis! It’s a tall-timber job, this time.”
“In the woods—the real woods,” supplemented Craig.
“Great!” indorsed Miss Elsham, accustomed to meeting all phases of action with agility. “I’ve just seen a movie with that kind of a girl in it. Leggings and knicks. I can see myself. Great!”
Director Craig surveyed her and nodded approvingly.