he food was included in the
passage and we had to pay for it whether we ate it or not.
That's why I am wondering if I plucked a quince. Wilbur was
never tight before we were wed, and you can take it from me that
if he starts to hold out or draw down now there is going to be
fine large doings in the Wilbur family from the female
delegation.

"Wilbur was in the smoking room the other evening and got to
talking with what he thought were a couple of boobs, but come to
find out they were wise guys. After sipping up a couple of slow
ones, the guys propose a little poker game. Wilbur and two other
boobs fall for the bunk and they open up. Wilbur, after losing a
little junk, gives the wise guys the office that he's jerry to
the fact that they are playing with newspaper, and lets them
know that if he ain't in on the frame-up he'll belch.

"These two boobs are dirty with the evergreen, and Wilbur's got
the wise guys so leary for fear he will tip his mitt and they
naturally slip him a big one every time they get a chance.
Wilbur gets his money back and everything is even all around,
but the wise guys are the only ones who want to lay down.

"Wilbur hands them a game of cheerful chatter and they don't
dare quit. Foxy Wilbur sits there until 3 a.m., raking in their
money, and incidentally corrals some that belongs to the wealthy
wops. In the meantime I am doing the earnest conversation act
with an old dowager that I met the second day out and she is
telling me about her country home in Devonshire or some other
one of these shire things. She sorta took a fancy to me and
insisted that Wilbur and I should run out there for a week-end.
Which end of the week she didn't say. But I guess if we go
Sunday we are safe. To hear this old dame tell it, she must own
about nine million acres up in the country, and her husband has
all kinds of wild animals--lions, tigers, elephants and all that
truck that are trained to be shot. She called it a shooting
lodge. Probably a branch of the Elks. This old party ceases her
harangue and I beat it to the air-felt and am pounding my ear
when Wilbur kicks in with a souse on.

"I come out of the hay and am getting ready to call him to a
fare-you-well when he flashes his bundle. My anger vanished in a
moment and I just reach out and cop the coin and roll ov