"We'll help you dress," said Rockwell. "We've come to take you to the hotel, you know."
"Yes, I know that all right," said Norman. "If I'm to be a damned reformer, I must get out of this." He laughed again. "Hand me those trousers, will you?"
He put his legs out of the bed. He had already dressed himself as far as his shirt. Then he had apparently given the job up and got back into bed.
"I'm weak as a kitten," he continued, "and I've the deuce of a fever, but I guess I can make it. You've a taxi, of course?"
"Yes," said Rockwell.
He did not tell Norman that the road to the taxi lay through two trapdoors and across a roof. Neither did he mention the fact that Merriam was to stay at Jennie's or allude to Thompson's coming. Perhaps he feared that if Norman knew of Thompson's approach he would prefer to stay where he was and join forces with him again.
In a very few minutes Norman was fully dressed--in the evening clothes in which he had left the hotel the night before, on his way, as he supposed, to Mayor Black's. Rockwell tied his white bow for him.
During the process of dressing he and Merriam were continually glancing at each other. Neither could resist the attraction. Several times they caught each other at it.
At about their third mutual detection, which happened during the tying of the bow, Norman laughed again.
"We're certainly a pair," he said. "Whether aces or deuces remains to be seen, eh?