“A lemon!” he answered.
“Then you can’t have any objection——”
“If you bring Miss Erskine in?” he interrupted. “Nay! Nay! Nay! Nay!” 191
“——if I take you there for a game of Bridge—shall we go this very evening?”
“If you wish,” he answered.
She laughed. “I don’t wish—and we are growing very silly. Come, tell about your Annapolis trip. You stayed a great while.”
“Something more than three weeks!”
“It’s a queer old town, Annapolis—they call it the ‘Finished City!’ It’s got plenty of landmarks, and relics, but nothing more. If it were not for the State Capitol and Naval Academy, it would be only a lot of ruins, lost in the sand. In midsummer, it’s absolutely dead. No one on the streets, no one in the shops, no one any place.—Deserted—until there’s a fire. Then you should see them come out!”
“That is sufficiently expressed!” laughed Croyden. “But, with the autumn and the Academy in session, the town seemed very much alive. We sampled ‘Cheney’s Best,’ Wegard’s Cakes, and saw the Custard-and-Cream Chapel.”
“You’ve been to Annapolis, sure!” she replied. “There’s only one thing more—did you see Paul Jones?”