"In just what way?" he asked. "I rather thought I was running out of it lately."
"Gee," said Roy, waxing excited, "do you call it hard luck to get a chance at being a hero, twice in three months, and have all the girls falling down and worshiping you, and all the old ladies patting you on the back——"
"I imagine that wouldn't have been particularly soothing," interrupted Grace, reaching, as always, for the ever-present candy box, "especially with poor Allen's back in the condition it was."
"Yes," said Allen with a grimace, "if anybody'd started to patting me at that time, I'd have returned pat for pat—only mine wouldn't have been gentle. Two cents for your thoughts, Betty. You haven't said a word all the way."
"Goodness, has the price of thoughts gone up with everything else?" queried Mollie, snatching a candy from under Grace's very nose. "Nobody ever offered me more than a penny for mine."
"Probably they weren't worth it," said Roy, to be promptly subdued by a look from Mollie's black eyes. "As I was saying," he continued, hastily changing the subject. "I'd consider myself in luck if I'd rescued two beautiful damsels——"
"They'd be the lucky ones," interrupted Mollie, with a smile.
"From a burning building," he continued, undaunted. "It certainly was dramatic, Allen, old chap—we have to hand it to you."
"I felt anything but dramatic at the time," said Allen ruefully. "The funny part of it is that I've always had a secret longing to do something of the sort—just to get the sensation. That," he paused dramatically, "cured me!"
"I should think it would cure most anybody," said Mollie with a grimace. "Neither Betty or I are particularly light weights. I don't see how you managed it, Allen—in the heat and the smoke and everything."