what might not happen to spot cotton day after tomorrow. They'd
passed up a chance to join the Country Club, had declined with thanks
when Vee asked 'em to go in on a series of dinner dances with some of
the young married set, and had even shied at taking an evening off for
one of Mrs. Robert Ellins' musical affairs.

"Thanks awfully," says Stanley, "but I have no time for social
frivolities."

"Gosh!" says I. "I hope you don't call two hours of Greig frivolous."

That seems to be his idea, though. Anything that ain't connected with
quotations on carload lots or domestic demands for middlings he looks at
scornful. He tells me he's on the trail of a big foreign contract, but
is afraid its going to get away from him.

"Maybe you'd linger on for a year or so if it did," I suggests.

"Perhaps," says he, "but I intend to let nothing distract me from my
work."

And then here a few days later I runs across him making for the 5:03
with two giggly young sub-debs in tow. After he's planted 'em in a seat
and stowed their hand luggage and wraps on the rack I slips into the
vacant space with him behind the pair.

"Where'd you collect the sweet young things, Stanley?" says I.

He shakes his head and groans. "Think of it!" says he. "Marge's folks
had to chase off to Bermuda for the Easter holidays and so they wish
Polly, the kid sister, onto us for two whole weeks. Not only that, but
Polly has the nerve to bring along this Dot person, her roommate at
boarding school. What on earth we're ever going to do with them I'm sure
I don't know."

"Is Polly the one with the pointed chin and the I-dare-you pout?" I
asks.

"No, that's Dot," says he. "Polly's the one with the cheek dimples and
the disturbing eyes. She's a case, too."

"They both look like they might be live wires," says I. "I see they've
brought their mandolins, also. And what's so precious in the bundle you
have on your knees?"

"Jazz records," says Stanley. "I've a mind to shove them under the seat
and forget they're there."

He don't though, for that's the only bundle Polly asks about when we
unload at our home station. I left Stanley negotiatin' with the
expressman to deliver two wardrobe trunks and went along chucklin' to
myself.

"My guess is that Dot and Polly are in for kind of a pokey vacation," I
tells Vee. "Unless they can get as excited over the cotton market as
Stanley does."

"The poor youngsters!" says Vee. "They might as well be visiting on a