were
nebulous at best and that in reality were remembered sensations.

"Silk of the body, can you beat it?" he concluded lamely, feeling that
he had failed to make his point, embarrassed by the circle of listeners.

"We know all that," Hall retorted. "The lies of the flesh. Afterward
come rheumatism and diabetes. The wine of life is heady, but all too
quickly it turns to--"

"Uric acid," interpolated the wild Irish playwright.

"They's plenty more of the good things," Billy took up with a sudden
rush of words. "Good things all the way up from juicy porterhouse and
the kind of coffee Mrs. Hall makes to...." He hesitated at what he was
about to say, then took it at a plunge. "To a woman you can love an'
that loves you. Just take a look at Saxon there with the ukulele in her
lap. There's where I got the jellyfish in the dishwater an' the prize
hog skinned to death."

A shout of applause and great hand-clapping went up from the girls, and
Billy looked painfully uncomfortable.

"But suppose the silk goes out of your body till you creak like a rusty
wheelbarrow?" Hall pursued. "Suppose, just suppose, Saxon went away with
another man. What then?"

Billy considered a space.

"Then it'd be me for the dishwater an' the jellyfish, I guess." He
straightened up in his chair and threw back his shoulders unconsciously
as he ran a hand over his biceps and swelled it. Then he took another
look at Saxon. "But thank the Lord I still got a wallop in both my arms
an' a wife to fill 'em with love."

Again the girls applauded, and Mrs. Hall cried:

"Look at Saxon! She blushing! What have you to say for yourself?"

"That no woman could be happier," she stammered, "and no queen as proud.
And that--"

She completed the thought by strumming on the ukulele and singing:

"De Lawd move in or mischievous way His blunders to perform."

"I give you best," Hall grinned to Billy.

"Oh, I don't know," Billy disclaimed modestly. "You've read so much I
guess you know more about everything than I do."

"Oh! Oh!" "Traitor!" "Taking it all back!" the girls cried variously.

Billy took heart of courage, reassured them with a slow smile, and said:

"Just the same I'd sooner be myself than have book indigestion. An' as
for Saxon, why, one kiss of her lips is worth more'n all the libraries
in the world."

CHAPTER X

"There be hills and valleys, and rich land, and streams of clear water,
good wagon roads and a railroad not too far away