'Match me!' cried Humphrey.
'What for?'
'To settle a very important point. Somebody's name has got to come first. Best two out of three.'
'But I don't——'
'Match me! No—it's mine!... Now I'll match you—mine again! I win. Well—that's settled!'
'What's settled? I don't——-'
Humphrey sat on a tool bench; swung his legs; grinned. 'Life moves on, Hen,' he said. 'It's a dramatic old world.'
And Henry, puzzled, looking at him, laughed excitedly.
8
It was two o'clock in the afternoon. Simpson Street was quiet after the brisk business of the morning. The air quivered up from the pavement in the still heat. The occasional people about the street moved slowly. The collars of the few visible tradesmen were soft rags around their necks and they mopped red faces with saturated handkerchiefs. The morning breeze had died; the afternoon breeze would drift in at four o'clock or so; until which time Sunbury ladies took their naps and Sunbury business men dozed at their desks. Saturday closing had not made much headway at this period, though the still novel game of golf was beginning to work its mighty change in small-town life.