Martin. "We admit the vintage
champagne, and the pate de foie gras, but that Countess stuff has been
overdone."

"Oh, has it?" says Budge. "You mean you didn't see any hangin' 'round
the freight sheds. But this is in Bastogne, old son, and there was her
Countess mark plastered all over everything, from the napkins to the
mantelpiece. Maybe I don't know one when I get a close-up, same as I did
then. Huh! I'm telling you she was the real thing. Why, I'll bet she
could sail into Tiffany's tomorrow and open an account just on the way
she carries her chin."

"Course she was a Countess," says Izzy. "I'll bet it was some dinner,
too. And what then?"

"It didn't happen until just as I was leavin'," says Budge. "'Sis,' says
I, 'vous etes un-un peach. Merci very much.' And I was holdin' out my
hand for a getaway shake when she closes in with a clinch that makes
this Romeo and Juliet balcony scene look like an old maid's farewell.
M-m-m-m. Honest, I didn't wash it off for two days. And, countess or
not, she was some grand little lady. I'll tell the world that."

"Look!" says one of our noble exempts. "You've even got old Jonesey
smackin' his lips."

That gets a big laugh from the bunch. It always does, for he's one of
our permanent jokes, old Jones. And as he happens to be sittin' humped
over here in the corner brushin' traces of an egg sandwich from his
mouth corners, the josh comes in kind of pat.

"Must have been some lady killer in his time, eh?" suggests Skip Martin.

That gets across as a good line too, and Skip follows it up with
another. "Let's ask him, fellers."

And the next thing old Jones knows he's surrounded by this grinnin'
circle of young hicks while Budge Haley is demandin': "Is it so,
Jonesey, that you used to be a reg'lar chicken hound?"

I expect it's the funny way he's gone bald, with only a fringe of
grayish hair left, and the watery blue eyes behind the dark glasses,
that got us callin' him Old Jones. Maybe the bent shoulders and his
being deaf in one ear helps. But as a matter of fact, I don't think he's
quite sixty. To judge by the fringe, he once had a crop of sandy hair
that was more or less curly. Some of the color still holds in the
bristly mustache and the ear tufts. A short, chunky party with a stubby
nose and sort of a solid-lookin' chin, he is.

But there never is much satisfaction kiddin' Jonesey. You can't get his
goat. He just holds his hand up to his ear and asks kind of bored: "Eh,