"Yeah--sure is," responded Ed Moran, who was low-browed and dark and
had an ugly jaw.

"Yeah--_damn_ hot," testified Jim Bloom. "How's Californy for
weather?"

"Oh-h--it has all kinds, same as here." Lance did not want to talk
about California just then, but he followed the lead easily enough.
"You can get anything you want in California. In two hours you can go
from twenty-five feet of snow to orange groves. You can have it all
green, fruit trees and roses blooming in midwinter, or you can hit
into desert worse than anything Idaho can show."

"Yep--that's right, all right. Great place, Californy," Chilly tried
to make his voice sound enthusiastic, and failed. "Great place."

"Speaking about climate--" Lance sat down on a corner of the table,
eased his trousers over his knees, crossed his tan Oxfords and began
a story. It was a long story, and for some time it was not at all
apparent that he was getting anywhere with it. He shuffled the deck
of cards while he talked, and the keno game, interrupted when he
began, trailed off into "Who's play is it?" and finally ceased
altogether. That was when Lance's Jewish dialect began to be funny
enough to make even Chilly Winters laugh. At the end there was a
general cachinnation.

"But that's only a sample of the stuff they pull out there, on
tourists," said Lance, when the laughter had subsided to a few belated
chuckles. "There's another one. It isn't funny--but I'm going to
_make_ it funny. You'll think it's funny--but it isn't, really."

He told that one and made them think it was funny. At least they
laughed, and laughed again when he had finished.

"Now here's another. This one really is funny--but you won't feel like
laughing at it. I'll tell it so you won't."

He told that story and saw it fall flat. "You see?" He flipped the
cards, tossed them on the table with a whimsical gesture. "It isn't
what you do in this world--it's how you do it that counts. I'm sitting
on your keno game, am I? All right, I'll get off."

He went out as abruptly as he had entered, and he paused long enough
outside to know that a silence marked his going. Then he heard Ed
Koran's voice depreciating him. Frankly he listened, lighting a
cigarette.

"Aw--his mother was an actress, wasn't she? _That_ guy ain't going to
cut no ice around here whatever."

"Looks an awful darn lot like Tom," ventured Chilly. "I dunno--you
take a Lorrigan--"

"Him? Lorrigan? Why, say! He may _look_ like a Lor