“Hats!” cried Joe, exuberantly. “What do we care about hats! I’ll buy you another one, honey, a dozen, if you want them.”
“Be careful, Joe,” Clara broke in, looking flushed and delightfully pretty herself. “She may take you up. Think of it—a dozen new hats! Such joy!”
“Speakin’ of hats, don’t you know,” broke in a well-known voice, “I jolly well need a new one myself. The bally old thing did a double flip out of the hat rack on our trip up heah in the train. Turned an entire circle, don’t you know——”
“Tell them where it landed, Reggie,” chuckled Mabel, flashing a mischievous glance at Clara. “Be sure you don’t forget any of the details.”
“By Jove! Do you know,” said Reggie, ruefully, “you would never guess the truth, not in a thousand years, unless I were to tell it to you myself! For this mistaken headpiece, don’t you know, instead of falling to the floor, where at the most it would have gathered a little dust, must choose a seat whereon a burly gentleman was just in the act of seating himself. A perfectly harmless and natural thing, don’t you know, on the part of the old gentleman——”
“But hard on the hat,” finished Joe, with a grin, adding as he slipped his arm through Mabel’s and drew her toward the stairs: “Never mind, old man, there are a dozen places in town where they have hats that will satisfy even you. Say,” he added happily, looking down into the smiling eyes of his young wife, “this is my lucky day.”
“You’re not the only one, old son,” said Jim, adding, as he proudly piloted Clara through the throng: “I tell you, we’ve picked a couple of girls that will make these bored Manhattanites turn round and stare, all right.”
“Bah Jove,” sighed Reggie, replacing the tiresome monocle that never would stay put, “you chappies are enough to make a poor old bachelor like me homesick, you are, truly. I feel quite out of it, don’t you know, de trop, a gooseberry, as you might say. An Antony without his Cleopatra, a Romeo without his Juliet. I say, it’s downright pathetic.”
“Poor old Reggie,” chuckled Mabel, snuggling her free hand within his arm. “It is a sad, sad story, isn’t it? But then, it’s really your own fault. There are lots of girls in the world, you know.”
“But no more Mabels,” said Joe.