It don't amount to anything. It's just business. Fellows
like Wilkinson, when some outsider is n't quite good enough socially
and they want to swell his head without committing themselves, take him
in their car or to the club. In that way they save their business
faces without sacrificing their social faces. I know," he growled.

"But how did he get in with the Wilkinsons? They have n't any
business."

"Wilkinson is in all sorts of things that nobody knows of but himself."
He glanced over the sub-caption. "Skinner sees no difference socially
between the St. Paul and the New York people. Puts St. Paul first," he
observed, "thanks for that." He read further. "'But the Western
people are more frankly hospitable'!"

"Moonshine! Moonshine!" he commented. "Hospitality ain't a matter of
location. You'll find generous people and devilish mean people, no
matter where you go. That's soft soap. It reads well--but--I know."

"It don't look as if he'd have much time for you, Willard."

"He ain't through yet," said Jackson, lighting a stogie. "I'll bet you
another dress that to-morrow--"

"Taken!"

Mrs. Jackson turned again to the paper.

"That girl knows how to _dress_, all right!"

But it was n't Honey's dress that stirred Mrs. Jackson's soul to the
depths. These Skinners were hand in glove with the inaccessible
Wilkinsons, and--the devil take it--Jackson was no longer a customer of
McLaughlin & Perkins, Inc.

Skinner read the evening paper with great satisfaction. The inky seed
disseminated through the press was, he felt, bound to take strong root
in the fertile consciousness of Mrs. Curmudgeon W. Jackson, and
therefrom was sure to react effectively upon the decidedly active
consciousness of Jackson himself.

With this end in view, as per plan of campaign for the reclamation of
Willard Jackson, Skinner had had himself interviewed on a subject dear
and flattering to the Middle West, especially flattering to St. Paul.
He had written his "first impressions of St. Paul" on the way out from
New York, and had permitted the same to be extracted by the
reporters--with great cunning--from his modest and reluctant self.
Honey was present--designedly present--while the young newspaper men
were quizzing Skinner, dressed in her very latest, which was carefully
noted and described in the interview, for decorative purposes.

"We just looked in _en passant_," Skinner observed to the reporters,
using his French to