in her lap beneath her robes and wraps. She reclined against her protecting bulwark, brightly and cosily at ease. But for the voices and the wind one might have listened hopefully to hear her purr. Someone cast fresh logs upon the fire. Judge Menefee nodded suavely. “Will you oblige us with the initial story?” he asked.
The windmill man sat as sits a Turk, with his hat well back on his head on account of the draughts.
“Well,” he began, without any embarrassment, “this is about the way I size up the difficulty: Of course Redruth was jostled a good deal by this duck who had money to play ball with who tried to cut him out of his girl. So he goes around, naturally, and asks her if the game is still square. Well, nobody wants a guy cutting in with buggies and gold bonds when he’s got an option on a girl. Well, he goes around to see her. Well, maybe he’s hot, and talks like the proprietor, and forgets that an engagement ain’t always a lead-pipe cinch. Well, I guess that makes Alice warm under the lace yoke. Well, she answers back sharp. Well, he———”
“Say!” interrupted the passenger who was nobody in particular, “if you could put up a windmill on every one of them ‘wells’ you’re using, you’d be able to retire from business, wouldn’t you?”
The windmill man grinned good-naturedly.
“Oh, I ain’t no Guy de Mopassong,” he said, cheerfully. I’m giving it to you in straight American,
