e effect was distinctly
pleasing. The camel's face was a study in pessimism, decorated with
numerous abrasions, and it must be admitted that his coat was in
that state of general negligence peculiar to camels--in fact, he
needed to be cleaned and pressed--but distinctive he certainly was.
He was majestic. He would have attracted attention in any gathering
if only by his melancholy cast of feature and the look of pensive
hunger lurking round his shadowy eyes.

"You see you have to have two people," said Mrs. Nolak again.

Perry tentatively gathered up the body and legs and wrapped them
about him, tying the hind legs as a girdle round his waist. The
effect on the whole was bad. It was even irreverent--like one of
those medieval pictures of a monk changed into a beast by the
ministrations of Satan. At the very best the ensemble resembled a
humpbacked cow sitting on her haunches among blankets.

"Don't look like anything at all," objected Perry gloomily.

"No," said Mrs. Nolak; "you see you got to have two people."

A solution flashed upon Perry.

"You got a date to-night?"

"Oh, I couldn't possibly--"

"Oh, come on," said Perry encouragingly. "Sure you can! Here! Be a
good sport and climb into these hind legs."

With difficulty he located them and extended their yawning depths
ingratiatingly. But Mrs. Nolak seemed loath. She backed perversely
away.

"Oh, no--"

"C'm on! Why, you can be the front if you want to. Or we'll flip a
coin."

"Oh, no--"

"Make it worth your while."

Mrs. Nolak set her lips firmly together.

"Now you just stop!" she said with no coyness implied. "None of the
gentlemen ever acted up this way before. My husband--"

"You got a husband?" demanded Perry. "Where is he?"

"He's home."

"Wha's telephone number?"

After considerable parley he obtained the telephone number
pertaining to the Nolak penates and got into communication with that
small, weary voice he had heard once before that day. But Mr. Nolak,
though taken off his guard and somewhat confused by Perry's
brilliant flow of logic, stuck staunchly to his point. He refused
firmly but with dignity to help out Mr. Parkhurst in the capacity of
back part of a camel.

Having rung off, or rather having been rung off on, Perry sat down
on a three-legged stool to think it over. He named over to himself
those friends on whom he might call, and then his mind paused as
Betty Medill's name hazily and sorrowfully occurred to him. He