also a new washboiler full of lemonade
that you can partake of at will, though I guess you won't want any--and
thanking you one and all!"

So they cheer Sandy like mad and beat it out to get first grab at the
plunder; and just as Cousin Egbert thinks he now knows the worst, in
comes the girls that had the booths, bringing all the chips Buck Devine
had paid 'em--two hundred and seventy-eight dollars' worth that Egbert
has to dig down for after he thinks all is over.

"Ain't it jolly," I says to him while he was writing another check on
the end of the bar. "This is the first time us ladies ever did clean out
every last object at a bazaar. Not a thing left; and I wish we'd got in
twice as much, because Sandy don't do things by halves when his money
comes easy from some poor dub that has thought highly of himself as a
thinker about money matters." He pretends not to hear me because of
signing his name very carefully to the check. "And what a sweet little
home you'll build for the Wales family!" I says. "I can see it now, all
ornamented up, and with one of these fancy bungalow names up over the
front gate--probably they'll call it The Breakers!"

But he wouldn't come back; so I left him surrounded by the wreck of his
former smartiness and went home. At the door where the treasures had
been massed not a solitary thing was left but a plush holder for a whisk
broom, with hand-painted pansies on the front; and I decided I could
live without that. Tim Mahoney was there, grouching round about having
to light up the hall next night for the B'nai B'rith; and I told him to
take it for himself. He already had six drawnwork doilies and a vanity
box with white and red powder in it.

As I go by the Hong Kong Quick Lunch, Sandy and three or four others is
up on stools; the Chinaman, cooking things behind the counter, is
wearing a lavender-striped silk dressing sacque and a lace boudoir cap
with pink ribbons in it. Yes; we'd all had a purple night of it!

Next day about noon I'm downtown and catch sight of Cousin Egbert
setting in the United States Grill having breakfast; so I feel mean
enough to go in and gloat over him some more. I think to find him all
madded up and mortified; but he's strangely cheerful for one who has
suffered. He was bearing up so wonderful that I asked why.

"Ain't you heard?" says he, blotting round in his steak platter with a
slice of bread. "Well, I got even with that Wales outfit just before
daylight--that