The Greeks had never worn either trousers or shirts, and the process of getting into these garments did not lend itself to romantic or esthetic interpretations. Therefore Vee Tracy rode down the beach while Bunny dressed; and when he rejoined her, she was no longer Greek, but an American young lady upon her dignity, and it would have been bad taste to have referred to her crazy prank.
She was leading the horse with the bridle over its head, and Bunny walked by her side. “Did you notice that nightmare?” she said, as they passed the thirty-two Loreleis in their grave-clothes. “That was one of the dreams of old Hank Thatcher. You’ve heard of ‘Happy Hank,’ the California Grape-king?”
“So that’s his place!” exclaimed Bunny.
“He dreamed of orgies, and kept half a dozen harems; his wife refused him a divorce to punish him, and when he died she covered up his dream as a kind of public penance.”
“Nobody seems to see it but the seals.”
“Oh, the papers were full of it; they would never pass up any news about the Thatchers. They send out a reporter once in a while. One time they had a scream of a story—the reporter had worn a suit of chain-mail under his trousers, and the dogs had torn at him in vain!”
“She sets dogs on them?”
“That’s why nobody dares go up there to peek at the statues.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Bunny. “I peeked at half a dozen of them.”
“Well, you were lucky. That’s why I carried this revolver along; they sometimes come onto the beach, and the neighbors make war on them.”