I hears the Bishop groan and flop on a seat behind me. Honest, it was straight! Dick and Jimmy was a couple of discards, old Grubby was another, and inside of a minute blamed if she hadn't mentioned a fourth, that was planted somewhere on the other side. Course, for a convention there wouldn't have been a straight quorum; but there was enough answerin' roll call to make it pass for a reunion, all right.
And it was a peach while it lasted. The pair of has-beens didn't have long to stay, one havin' to get back to Chicago and the other bein' billed to start on a yachtin' trip. They'd just run over to say by-by; and tell how they was plannin' an annual dinner, with the judges and divorce lawyers for guests. Yes, yes, they was a jolly couple, them two! All the Bishop could do was lay back and fan himself as he listens, once in awhile whisperin' to himself, "My, my!" As for Ferdy, he looked like he'd been hypnotised and was waitin' to be woke up.
The pair was sayin' good-bye for the third and last time, when in rushes a high strung, nervous young feller with a pencil behind his ear and a pad in his hand.
"Well, Larry, what is it now?" snaps out Madam Brooklini, doin' the lightnin' change act with her voice. "I am engaged, you see."
"Can't help it," says Larry. "Got fourteen reporters and eight snapshot men waiting to do the sailing story for the morning editions. Shall I bring 'em up?"
"But I am entertaining two of my ex-husbands," says the lady, "and——"
"Great!" says Larry. "We'll put 'em in the group. Who's the other?"
"Oh, that's only Ferdy," says she. "I haven't married him yet."
"Bully!" says Larry. "We can get half a column of space out of him alone. He goes in the pictures too. We'll label him 'Next,' or 'Number Five Elect,' or something like that. Line 'em up outside, will you?"
"Oh, pshaw!" says Madam Brooklini. "What a nuisance these press agents are! But Larry is so enterprising. Come, we'll make a splendid group, the four of us. Come, Ferdy."