d her husband are criminals,
in the way they overcharge for hideous food and----"

The landlady had been petrified. Now she charged down. Behind her came
her husband. Milt arose. The husband stopped. But it was Pinky who faced
the landlady, tapped her shoulder, and launched into, "And what's more,
you hag, if our new friends here have any sense, they'll run you out of
town."

That was only the beginning of Pinky's paper on corrections and
charities. He enjoyed himself. Before he finished, the landlady was
crying ... she voluntarily promised to give her boarders waffles, some
morning, jus' soon as she could find the waffle-iron.

With her guard about her, at the office desk, Claire paid one dollar
apiece for the rooms, and discussion was not.

Before they started, Milt had the chance to say to her, "I'm getting so
I can handle Pinky now. Have to. Thinking of getting hold of his
gold-mine. I just give him the eye, as your friend Mr. Saxton would, and
he gets so meek----"

"But don't! Please understand me, Milt; I do admire Mr. Saxton; he is
fine and capable, and really generous; only---- He may be just a bit
snippish at times, while you--you're a playmate--father's and
mine--and---- I did face that landlady, didn't I! I'm not soft and
trivial, am I! Praise!"

* * * * *

She had driven through the panhandle of Idaho into Washington, through
Spokane, through the writhing lava deposits of Moses Coulee where fruit
trees grow on volcanic ash. Beyond Wenatchee, with its rows of apple
trees striping the climbing fields like corduroy in folds, she had come
to the famous climb of Blewett Pass. Once over that pass, and
Snoqualmie, she would romp into Seattle.

She was sorry that she hadn't come to know Milt better, but perhaps she
would see him in Seattle.

Not adventure alone was she finding, but high intellectual benefit in
studying the names of towns in the state of Washington. Not Kankakee nor
Kalamazoo nor Oshkosh can rival the picturesque fancy of Washington, and
Claire combined the town-names in a lyric so emotion-stirring that it
ought, perhaps, to be the national anthem. It ran:

Humptulips, Tum Tum, Moclips, Yelm,
Satsop, Bucoda, Omak, Enumclaw,
Tillicum, Bossburg, Chettlo, Chattaroy,
Zillah, Selah, Cowiche, Keechelus,
Bluestem, Bluelight, Onion Creek, Sockeye,
Antwine, Chopaka, Startup, Kapowsin,
Skamokawa, Sixprong, Pysht!

Klickitat, Kitt