"It is funny," the latter agreed. "For Heaven's sake, don't spoil it. Sit down and have a smoke; I'm not going to eat you."
"See here! You don't mean—? D'you think for a minute—?" Mr. Hyde began with rotund dignity, but the other waved his cigarette impatiently, saying:
"Oh, drop that stuff or I'll page your friend 'Mac' and show you up."
In assuming his air of outraged innocence Laughing Bill had arched his hollow chest and inhaled deeply. As a result he began to cough, whereupon his new acquaintance eyed him keenly, saying:
"That's a bad bark. What ails you?"
"Con," said Laughing Bill.
"Pardon me. I wouldn't have smoked if I'd known." The speaker dropped his cigarette and placed a heel upon it. "What are you doing here? Alaska's no place for weak lungs."
Gingerly seating himself upon the narrow settee Mr. Hyde murmured, wonderingly: "Say! You're a regular guy, ain't you?" He began to laugh again, but now there was less of a metallic quality to his merriment. "Yes sir, dam' if you ain't." He withdrew from his pocket a silver-mounted hair-brush and comb, and placed them carefully upon the washstand. "I don't aim to quit winner on a sport like you."
"Thanks, awfully!" smiled the young man. "I'd have fought you for that comb and brush. Girl stuff, you understand? That's she." He pointed to a leather-framed photograph propped against the mirror.
Laughing Bill leaned forward and studied the picture approvingly.
"Some queen, all right. Blonde, I reckon."