ys we couldn't know."

"But, my dear boy, you could learn what was necessary," she contended.

Billy shook his head.

"No. You don't quite get me. Let's take it this way. Just suppose it's
me, with jam an' jelly, a-wadin' into that swell restaurant like you did
to talk with the top guy. Why, I'd be outa place the moment I stepped
into his office. Worse'n that, I'd feel outa place. That'd make me have
a chip on my shoulder an' lookin' for trouble, which is a poor way to do
business. Then, too, I'd be thinkin' he was thinkin' I was a whole lot
of a husky to be peddlin' jam. What'd happen, I'd be chesty at the drop
of the hat. I'd be thinkin' he was thinkin' I was standin' on my foot,
an' I'd beat him to it in tellin' him he was standin' on HIS foot. Don't
you see? It's because I was raised that way. It'd be take it or leave it
with me, an' no jam sold."

"What you say is true," Mrs. Mortimer took up brightly. "But there is
your wife. Just look at her. She'd make an impression on any business
man. He'd be only too willing to listen to her."

Billy stiffened, a forbidding expression springing into his eyes.

"What have I done now?" their hostess laughed.

"I ain't got around yet to tradin' on my wife's looks," he rumbled
gruffly.

"Right you are. The only trouble is that you, both of you, are fifty
years behind the times. You're old American. How you ever got here in
the thick of modern conditions is a miracle. You're Rip Van Winkles. Who
ever heard, in these degenerate times, of a young man and woman of the
city putting their blankets on their backs and starting out in search of
land? Why, it's the old Argonaut spirit. You're as like as peas in a
pod to those who yoked their oxen and held west to the lands beyond
the sunset. I'll wager your fathers and mothers, or grandfathers and
grandmothers, were that very stock."

Saxon's eyes were glistening, and Billy's were friendly once more. Both
nodded their heads.

"I'm of the old stock myself," Mrs. Mortimer went on proudly.
"My grandmother was one of the survivors of the Donner Party. My
grandfather, Jason Whitney, came around the Horn and took part in
the raising of the Bear Flag at Sonoma. He was at Monterey when John
Marshall discovered gold in Sutter's mill-race. One of the streets in
San Francisco is named after him."

"I know it," Billy put in. "Whitney Street. It's near Russian Hill.
Saxon's mother walked across the Plains."

"And Billy's grandfather and