“Know what I think?” asked Nip Storer, sinking his voice. “I think Johnny’s got a girl! I was in his room two or three days ago and there’s a whacking big picture of a dame on his mantel that wasn’t there last year. I’ll bet he’s going to get married, fellows!”
The theory aroused interest at that end of the long table. “Sure as shooting!” said Ted Ball. “That’s why he’s going to quit, eh?”
“If he is,” doubted Billy Haines. “Me, I think that’s just bunk.”
“Well, I don’t. You hear it everywhere. Say, what’s the girl look like, Nip?”
“Some queen, kid! Sort of proud-looking, you know, like one of those movie dames.”
“Don’t know that I’d be very keen about hitching up with Johnny if I was a girl,” said Dozier. “Bet you he will make her toe the mark.”
“Take the bet,” scoffed Ted. “She’ll gentle him in a week! Say, I had a cousin who was a major in the World War and got four decorations and citations and things and was a holy terror over there. Killed ’em single-handed or lugged ’em in over his shoulder, a couple at a time. Some boy he was! Well, what happened to him four years ago? Why, he met a girl who just reached up to the place where he parked his medals and married her. Some one went by their place about two months after they got settled and blamed if the Major wasn’t out in the back-yard beating a carpet!”
“‘The bigger they are the harder they fall,’” chuckled Nip. “Say, Johnny will be a regular find when it comes to house cleaning. With that bristle head of his his wife can clean every rug in the house. And when it comes to getting the soot out of the stovepipes!”
“Aw, shut up,” growled Billy Haines. “He isn’t going to get married and he isn’t going to quit. Bet you that picture’s his sister.”