"Say, I don't get—"
"Leave it to me," said Skippy, who led the way to the cigar counter.
Ten minutes later Mr. Skippy Bedelle and Mr. Snorky Green, with large banded cigars, entered the ladies' saloon and carelessly installed themselves at a table next but one to that occupied by the young girls.
"Well, old sport," said Snorky, twirling the mercifully unsmoked cigar in his fingers. "Suppose we go over our accounts?"
"Always be businesslike," said Skippy, poising a pencil over a sheet of paper with plutocratic nonchalance.
"Owe you thirty-five plunks for last night's poker game," said Snorky, raising his voice sufficiently.
"That's right, and I owe—"
"Hold on, me first."
Snorky dug into his trousers and came up with a roll of greenbacks that made the colored porter who happened to be passing stumble in his step.
"Twenty and ten and five, makes thirty-five," he said, peeling them off with a nimble exhibition of legerdemain which kept the lower bills well concealed.