30
as fain to obey.
"Don't you be scared, miss," said Cluff, turning to the girl. "It's all over."
"I'm not frightened," she said, with a catch in her voice.
"Of course you ain't," he agreed reassuringly. "You just sit quiet--"
"But I--I--I'm MAD, clean through."
"You gotta right. You gotta perfect right. Now, if this was New York, I'd spread that gold-laced guy's face--"
"I'm not angry at him. Not particularly, I mean."
"No?" queried her friend in need. "What got your goat, then?"
Miss Brewster shot a quick and scornful glance over her shoulder.
"Oh, HIM" interpreted the athlete. "Well, he made his get-away like a man with some reason for being elsewhere."
"Reason enough. He was afraid."
"Maybe. Being afraid's a queer thing," remarked her escort academically. "Now, me, I'm afraid of a fuzzy caterpillar. But I ain't exactly timid about other things."
"You certainly aren't. And I don't know how to thank you."
"Aw, that's awright, miss. What else could I do? Our departed friend, Professor Goggle-Eye, when he made his jump, landed right in my shirt front. 'Take my place,' he says; 'I've got an engagement.' Well, I was just moving forward, anyway, so it was no trouble at all, I assure you," asserted the doughty Cluff, achieving a truly elegant conclusion.
"Most fortunate for me," said the girl sweetly. "Mr. Perkins scuttled away like one of his own little wretched beetles. When I see him again--"
"Again? Oh, well, if he's a friend of yours, accourse he'd awtuv stood by--"
"He isn't!" she declared, with unnecessary vehemence.
"Don't you be too hard on him, miss," argued her escort. "Seems to me he did a pretty good job for you, and stuck to it until he found some one else to take it up."
"Then why didn't he stand by you?"
"Oh, I don't carry any 'Help-wanted' signs on me. You know, miss, you can't size up a man in this country like he was at home. Now, me, I'd have natcherly hammered that Vo