or wouldn't dast say it if they did.

"About five o'clock I took another run downtown for some things I'd
forgot, with an eye out to see how Alonzo and Ben might be coming on.
The fact is, seeing each other only once a year that way they're apt to
kind of loosen up--if you know what I mean.

"No sign of 'em at first. Nothing but ladies young and old--even some of
us older ranching set--making final purchases of ribbons and such for
the sole benefit of Wilfred Lennox, and talking in a flushed manner
about him whenever they met. Almost every darned one of 'em had made it
a point to stroll past the Price mansion that afternoon where Wilfred
was setting out on the lawn, in a wicker chair with some bottles of beer
surveying Nature with a look of lofty approval and chatting with
Henrietta about the real things of life.

"Beryl Mae Macomber had traipsed past four times, changing her clothes
twice with a different shade of ribbon across her forehead and all her
college pins on, and at last she'd simply walked right in and asked if
she hadn't left her tennis racquet there last Tuesday. She says to Mrs.
Judge Ballard and Mrs. Martingale and me in the Cut-Rate Pharmacy, she
says: 'Oh, he's just awfully magnetic--but do you really think he's
sincere?' Then she bought an ounce of Breath of Orient perfume and kind
of two-stepped out. These other ladies spoke very sharply about the
freedom Beryl Mae's aunt allowed her. Mrs. Martingale said the poet, it
was true, had a compelling personality, but what was our young girls
coming to? And if that child was hers--

"So I left these two lady highbinders and went on into the retail side
of the Family Liquor Store to order up some cooking sherry, and there
over the partition from the bar side what do I hear but Alonzo Price and
Ben Sutton! Right off I could tell they'd been pinning a few on. In
fact, Alonzo was calling the bartender Mister. You don't know about Lon,
but when he calls the bartender Mister the ship has sailed. Ten minutes
after that he'll be crying over his operation. So I thought quick,
remembering that we had now established a grillroom at the country club,
consisting of a bar and three tables with bells on them, and a
Chinaman, and that if Alonzo and Ben Sutton come there at all they had
better come right--at least to start with. When I'd given my order I
sent Louis Meyer in to tell the two gentlemen a lady wished to speak to
them outside.

"In a minute Ben comes out al