It Pays to Smile

by Nina Wilcox Putnam

I could only bite my lip and refrain from going into the question further at the moment. Mr. Pegg's social and geographical ideas were at that time in sad need of correction. But then correction made so little impression on him. If his mind was made up to get a thing he would brush aside all else until the attainment of his object. Already I was learning not to dispute his decisions. Besides, it was conceivable that Cousin Abby did know some French nobility, or the lessees of some, and that if she accepted us at all we might possibly make their acquaintance in due course. Indeed the circumstances were far less improbable than so much which had actually occurred during the past month that I dismissed the question momentarily, wrote Euphemia a brief note informing her of our prospective change of address, and then sought out my charge for the purpose of imparting her father's instructions.

At first I experienced some difficulty in locating her, but after a diligent search of our sumptuous suite I at length discovered her in the public corridor near the elevator, where she was engaged in explaining some game of cards—a form of solitaire—to the youth who operated the elevator. They were seated upon a bench near the shaft, and the youth was completely negligent of his duty. At my approach Miss Alicia looked up and nodded, but continued her explanation.

"The jack on the queen," she was saying; "the ten on the jack; move 'em over—that makes a dollar you owe me!"

"Alicia!" I exclaimed. "Stop it at once! What are you doing?"

"Canfield," she replied mysteriously. "Want to take me on?" She gathered up the cards, which I then discovered to be part of what I may term her personal equipment, being small and easily contained in that part of her vanity case usually occupied by rouge and lip stick, for which, thank heaven, Alicia had neither need nor desire, though perhaps when one stops to consider the matter it is somewhat doubtful if her substitution of a pack of playing cards had a greater moral value.

"I don't want to take you on; I want to take you away!" I said. "Come back to the apartment and pack. We are to proceed to Monte Carlo in the morning.

"Suffering cats!" exclaimed Peaches. "No wonder you don't want to stop for any of this piker stuff." Then she turned to the elevator boy, who still lingered, seemingly in a state of semihypnosis. "Thanks for the paper, captain," she said. "Keep that dollar you owe me for a tip!" And then she slid her arm around my neck and strolled down the corridor with me, while the youth, with a parting grin, at length perceived the buzzing of the indicator, and vanished into his elevator contraption, not having uttered a single word since my advent.

"I had him try to find me a San Francisco paper," Peaches explained as we returned to our royal apartments. "I get so sick of these Frenchy ones that I can't read, and of the London ones that have only news which could never have been fresh to me. I wanted to see a good comic sheet. Gee! How we used to rush for 'em out on the ranch. When Bill Hovey's mule team came into sight over Bear Ridge Dick and I used to commence matching for who'd open the bag. And generally we'd look at the comics together. Don't you love Krazy-Kat?"

I shook my head slowly, more in despair at her simplicity than as the negative she took the gesture for.

"Well, you wouldn't, no, nor Buster Brown, either, I suppose. But we didn't have any volumes of Webster or any such light stuff on the ranch, and had to take what we could get."