"But if you would go," she suggests, "with a note from me asking her to join us somewhere at dinner——"
I holds up both hands.
"Sorry," says I, "but I got to duck. That's taking too many chances."
Then I explains how, although I may look like a singleton, I'm really the other half of a very interestin' domestic sketch, and that Vee's expectin' me home to dinner.
"Why, all the better!" says Mrs. Parker Smith. "Have her come in and join us. I'll tell you: we will have our little party down at the old Napoleon, where they have such delicious French cooking. Now, please."
As I've hinted before, she is some persuader. I ain't mesmerized so strong, though, but what I got sense enough to play it safe by callin' up Vee first. I don't think she was strong for joinin' the reunion until I points out that I might be some shy at wanderin' down into the art-student colony and collectin' a strange young lady illustrator all by myself.
"Course, I could do it alone if I had to," I throws in.
"H-m-m-m!" says Vee. "If that bashfulness of yours is likely to be as bad as all that, perhaps I'd better come."
So by six o 'clock Vee and I are in the dinky reception-room of one of them Belasco boardin'-houses, tryin' to convince a young female in a paint-splashed smock and a floppy boudoir cap that we ain't tryin' to kidnap or otherwise annoy her.