a dashing blue feather seen through a distant saloon window. "This one's
got it all; hair to everything."

"And what did she do--married a traveling salesman and built a tony
brick house. They never had no children, but when he was killed into a
railway accident she trimmed up that parrot's cage with crape--and
now,"--Mrs. Tinneray with increasing solemnity chewed her
calamus-root--"_now_ she's been and bought one of them ottermobiles and
runs it herself like you'd run your sewin'-machine, just as
_shameless_--"

Both of the ladies glared condemnation at the distant blue feather.

Mrs. Tinneray continued, "Hetty Cronney's worth a dozen of her. When I
think of that there bird goin' on this excursion and Hetty Cronney
stayin' home because she's too poor, I get _nesty_, Mrs. Bean, yes, I
do!"

"Don't your cousin Hetty live over to Chadwick's Harbor," inquired Mrs.
Bean, "and don't this boat-ride stop there to take on more folks?"

Mrs. Tinneray, acknowledging that these things were so, uncorked a small
bottle of cologne and poured a little of it on a handkerchief
embroidered in black forget-me-nots. She handed the bottle to Mrs. Bean
who took three polite sniffs and closed her eyes. The two ladies sat
silent for a moment. They experienced a detachment of luxurious abandon
filled with the poetry of the steamboat saloon. Psychically they were
affected as by ecclesiasticism. The perfume of the cologne and the throb
of the engines swept them with a sense of esthetic reverie, the thrill
of travel, and the atmosphere of elegance. Moreover, the story of the
Hutch money and the Hutch hairs had in some undefined way affiliated the
two. At last by tacit consent they rose, went out on deck and, holding
their reticules tight, walked majestically up and down. When they passed
Mrs. Turtle's blue feathers and the gold parrot-cage they smiled
meaningly and looked at each other.

* * *

As the _Fall of Rome_ approached Chadwick's Landing more intimate groups
formed. The air was mild, the sun warm and inviting, and the water an
obvious and understandable blue. Some serious-minded excursionists sat
well forward on their camp-stools discussing deep topics over
half-skinned bananas.

"Give me the Vote," a lady in a purple raincoat was saying, "Give me the
Vote and I undertake to close up every rum-hole in God's World."

A mild-mannered youth with no chin, upon hearing this, edged away. He
went to the stern, looking down for a long