“Certainly not. Have you seen Mr. Mayrant to-day?”
“We have an engagement to walk this afternoon. May I go walking with you sometime?”
“May he, General?” A wagging tail knocked on the floor behind the counter. “General says that he will think about it. What makes you like Mr. Mayrant so much?”
This question struck me as an odd one; nor could I make out the import of the peculiar tone in which she put it. “Why, I should think everybody would like him—except, perhaps, his double victim.”
“Double?”
“Yes, first of his fist and then of—of his hand!”
But she didn’t respond.
“Of his hand—his poker hand,” I explained.
“Poker hand?” She remained honestly vague.
It rejoiced me to be the first to tell her. “You haven’t heard of Master John’s last performance? Well, finding himself forced by that immeasurable old Aunt Josephine of yours to shake hands, he shook ‘em all right, but he took thirty dollars away as a little set-off for his pious docility.”