He started up, big and shaggy—and wistful—like a St. Bernard. I like old men to look like St. Bernards—and young ones to look like greyhounds.
"Don't get up—nor clear off a chair for me," I warned, catching up the vase and starting toward the water-cooler. "I can't stay a minute."
He collapsed into his squeaky revolving chair. When he was a lad a Yankee minnie ball had implanted a kiss upon his left shoulder-blade, and he still carried that side with a jaunty little hike—a most flirtatious little hike, which, however, caused the distinguished rest of him to appear unduly severe.
"Ah! But you must explain the 'dolled-up' aspect," he begged.
I laughed at the schoolgirl slang.
"Why, this is Flag Day!" I told him. "How can you have forgotten?—There will be a gigantic celebration at Mrs. Hiram Walker's—and all the pedigreed world will be there."
He smiled—slowly.
"And you're writing it up?"
"Just Major Coleman's lecture! They say he is quite the most learned man in the world on the subject of flags. He knows them and loves them. He carries them about with him on these lecture tours in felt-lined steel cases."
"Cases?" he smiled.