"Stop it!" Mrs. Allen shouted shrilly. "Slim Hoover, if your brains was dynamite you couldn't blow the top of your head off."
Polly was greatly amused by Slim's encounter with the cleanly Mrs. Allen. Slim stood with open mouth, watching Mrs. Allen flounce out of the room after Polly, who was trying in vain to suppress her laughter. Turning to the girl, he said: "Ain't seen you in some time."
Slim was thankful that the girl was seated at the table with her back to him. Somehow or other he found he could speak to her more freely when she was not looking at him.
"That so?" she challenged. "Come to the birthday?"
"Not regular," he answered.
Polly glanced at him over her shoulder. It was too much for Slim. He turned away to hide his embarrassment. Partly recovering from his bashfulness, he coughed, preparatory to speaking. But Polly had vanished. As one looks sheepishly for the magician's disappearing coin, so Slim gazed at floor and ceiling as if the girl might pop up anywhere. Spying an empty chair behind him, he sank into it gingerly and awkwardly.
Meantime Polly returned with a broom and began sweeping out the evidences of Slim's visit. She spoke again:
"Get them hold-ups yet that killed 'Ole Man' Terrill?" she asked.
"Not yet. But we had a new shootin' over'n our town yesterday."
Slim was doing his best to make conversation. Polly did not help him out very freely.