"Uh, enjoying Seattle?"
"Oh! Oh yes. The mountains—— Do you like it?"
"Oh! Oh yes. Sea and all—— Great town."
"Uh, w-when are we going to see you? Daddy had to go East, left you his regards. W-when——?"
"Why—why I suppose you're awful—awfully busy, meeting people and all——"
"Yes, I am, rather, but——" Her hedging uncomfortable tone changed to a cry of distress. "Milt! I must see you. Come up at four this afternoon."
"Yes!"
He rushed to a small, hot tailor-shop. He panted "Press m' suit while I wait?" They gave him a pair of temporary trousers, an undesirable pair of trousers belonging to a short fat man with no taste in fabrics, and with these flapping about his lean legs, he sat behind a calico curtain, reading The War Cry and looking at a "fashion-plate" depicting nine gentlemen yachtsmen each nine feet tall, while the Jugoslav in charge unfeelingly sprinkled and ironed and patted his suit.
He spent ten minutes in blacking his shoes, in his room—and twenty minutes in getting the blacking off his fingers.
He was walking through the gate in the Gilson hedge at one minute to four.