had a
sentimental thought. He would ask her. Their love affair was over,
but she could not refuse this last request. Surely it was not much
to ask--to help him keep up his end of social obligation for one
short night. And if she insisted she could be the front part of the
camel and he would go as the back. His magnanimity pleased him. His
mind even turned to rosy-coloured dreams of a tender reconciliation
inside the camel--there hidden away from all the world.

"Now you'd better decide right off."

The bourgeois voice of Mrs. Nolak broke in upon his mellow fancies
and roused him to action. He went to the phone and called up the
Medill house. Miss Betty was out; had gone out to dinner.

Then, when all seemed lost, the camel's back wandered curiously into
the store. He was a dilapidated individual with a cold in his head
and a general trend about him of downwardness. His cap was pulled
down low on his head, and his chin was pulled down low on his chest,
his coat hung down to his shoes, he looked run-down, down at the
heels, and--Salvation Army to the contrary--down and out. He said
that he was the taxicab driver that the gentleman had hired at the
Clarendon Hotel. He had been instructed to wait outside, but he had
waited some time and a suspicion had grown upon him that the
gentleman had gone out the back way with purpose to defraud
him--gentlemen sometimes did--so he had come in. He sank down on to
the three-legged stool.

"Wanta go to a party?" demanded Perry sternly.

"I gotta work," answered the taxi driver lugubriously. "I gotta keep
my job."

"It's a very good party."

"'S a very good job."

"Come on!" urged Perry. "Be a good fella. See--it's pretty!" He held
the camel up and the taxi driver looked at it cynically.

"Huh!"

Perry searched feverishly among the folds of the cloth.

"See!" he cried enthusiastically, holding up a selection of folds.
"This is your part. You don't even have to talk. All you have to do
is to walk--and sit down occasionally. You do all the sitting down.
Think of it. I'm on my feet all the time and you can sit down some
of the time. The only time I can sit down is when we're lying down,
and you can sit down when--oh, any time. See?"

"What's 'at thing?" demanded the individual dubiously "A shroud?"

"Not at all," said Perry hurriedly. "It's a camel."

"Huh?"

Then Perry mentioned a sum of money, and the conversation left the
land of grunts and assumed a practical tinge.