“I couldn't work him myself,” Baker said, “fer the dern skunk hain't any more use fer me than I have fer him, but I reckon I kin put some of his pals onto the job.”
“Well, go ahead, Pole,” Garner urged. “I'll run up to the room and try to detain Carson. For all you do, don't let Willis come up there.”
Garner found the young men still in the den chatting about the ball and Carson's campaign.
Wade Tingle sat at the table with several sheets of paper before him, upon which, in a big, reporter's hand, he had been writing a glowing account of “the greatest social event” in the history of the town.
“I've got a corking write-up, Bill,” he said, enthusiastically. “I've just been reading it to the gang. It is immense. Miss Helen sent me a full memorandum of what the girls wore, and, for a green hand, I think I have dressed 'em up all right.”
“The only criticism I made on it, Garner,” spoke up Keith from his bed in the corner, where he lay fully dressed, “is that Wade has ended all of Helen's descriptions by adding, 'and diamonds.' I'll swear I'm no critic of style in writing, but that eternal 'and diamonds, and diamonds, and diamonds,' at the end of every paragraph, sounds so monotonous that it gets funny. He even had Miss Sally Ware's plain black outfit tipped off with 'and diamonds.'”
“Well, I look at it this way, Bill,” Wade said, earnestly, as Garner sat down, “Of course, the girls who had them on would not like to see them left out, for they are nice things to have, and, on the other hand, those who were short in that direction would feel sorter out of it.”
“I think if he had just written 'jewels' once in awhile,” Keith said, “it would sound all right, and leave something to the imagination.”
“That might help,” Garner said, his troubled glance on Carson's rather grave face; “but see that you don't write it 'jewelry.'”
“Well, I'll accept the amendment,” Wade said, as he began to scratch his manuscript and rewrite.