"Pass!" says I. "Hank, they could use you for a sign. Lookin' as you do now, you could go to any one night stand in the country and be handed the New York papers without sayin' a word. What I want to know, though, is how it happened?"
"Happen?" says he. "Shorty, such things don't come by accident. You buy 'em. You go through torture for 'em."
"Say, Hank," says I, "you don't mean to say you've been up against the skinologists?"
Well, he had. They'd kept his face in a steam box by the hour, scrubbed him with pumice stone, electrocuted his lip fringe, made him wear a sleepin' mask, and done everything but peel him alive.
"Look at that for a paw!" says he. "Ain't it lady-like?"
It was. Every fingernail showed the half moon, and the palm was as soft as a baby's.
"You must have been makin' a business of it," says I. "How long has this thing been goin' on?"
"Nearly four months," says Hank, heavin' a groan. "Part of that time I put in five hours a day; but I've got 'em scaled down to two now. It's been awful, Shorty, but it had to be done."
"How was that?" says I.
"On Reney's account," says he. "She's powerful peart at savvyin' things, Reney is. Why, when we struck town I was wearin' a leather trimmed hat and eatin' with my knife, just as polite as I knew how. We hadn't been here a day before she saw that something was wrong. 'Hank,' says she, 'this ain't where we belong. Let's go back.'—'What for?' says I.—'Shucks!' says she. 'Can't you see? These folks are different from us. Look at 'em!' Well, I did, and it made me mad. 'Reney,' says I,' I'll allow there is something wrong with us, but I reckon it ain't bone deep. There's such a thing as burnin' one brand over another, ain't there? Suppose we give it a whirl?' That's what we done too, and I'm beginnin' to suspicion we've made good."