her and me.
Soon as we got to feeling like old friends and I found out she knew
you, I said, 'Look here, Wanda--"

"What!" cried Shandon, bolt upright.

Mr. Willie Dart blew a playful puff of smoke at him and picked up the
tale:

"I said, 'Look here, Wanda--'"

"Wanda who?" sharply.

"Leland, of course. Wanda Leland. Got it now? How am I ever going to
get anything said if you keep butting in like that, Red? I said, 'Look
here--'"

"You look here!" muttered Shandon. "I don't like to hear you talk
about her at all. If you've got to do it, call her Miss Leland.
Understand?"

"Aw, rats, Red. What's the use of that kind of talk between friends?
She don't care."

"Well, I do. And I mean it."

"Oh, all right. Well, anyway, we was setting on a log together and we
got to talking like fellers and girls do, you know. Good God, Red,
quit your glaring at me like you was an old tomcat screwing yourself up
to jump a mouse. I never kissed her even, I swear I didn't. I found
out she knew you and I begun right then being a real friend. Say, Red,
if you could have heard the fairy tales I dropped into that fair
maiden's pearly ear!"

His dimples twinkled and danced and deepened upon his round face.
Shandon, staring at him fearfully, demanded to be told what the fairy
tales had consisted of. Willie Dart eagerly complied.

"I set right in watering your stock, old scout. I told her you were a
hero and a guy a man could trust a gold watch to that didn't have any
marks on it to prove who it belonged to. I begun by informing her how
you came to my rescue when a hard fate had me on the embers of despair."

"You told her that?" in amazement.

"Oh, don't get alarmed. I set forth the account in such a way that
while your part was not lessened my own was not exactly--"

"In other words you twisted it entirely out of shape," laughed the
other. "You forgot to say that a detective nabbed you while you were
picking my pocket and that I--"

Willie Dart raised a soft white hand.

"I showed her how you saved my bacon," he said easily. "What's the
difference how you done it? Then, when I got through that and I could
see she was thinking what a grand man you are and she never noticed it
before, I slipped a card off a fresh deck and related your adventures
with the Roosian princess."

The dimples that had fled as his host mentioned a certain word which
Mr. Willie Dart did not like to hear now came back. Shandon sta