Cappy Ricks smiled wistfully.
“If I had a son I'd pal up with him,” he declared. “I'd want to get out with him and raise a little dignified hell once in a while, just to be a human being and keep him from being a mollycoddle. Ahem! Harumph. So he flagged this damsel in the leg show, eh?”
Joe Gurney nodded miserably.
“Have you given her the once over?” Cappy demanded.
“Yes, I went up there one night. I was afraid somebody would see me, so I took along Joey's aunt, Matilda. We saw the young woman. She does a dance specialty—an alleged Hawaiian hula-hula. It's fake from start to finish.”
“You show a guilty technical knowledge of the hula, Joe,” Cappy reminded him. “But passing that, what's the latest report on the situation?”
“Horrible, Alden, horrible!” replied Joe Gurney.
“Careful, Joe, careful! Many a wheat-straw skirt and sharks'-teeth necklace may conceal a pure and honest heart.”
“Well, she's been married twice and divorced once, to begin with, and—”
“That's a-plenty, Joe.”