"You find it more, Ahearn," said Harold, nodding emphatically "'f I've an'thin' do 'th it." He soared into a eulogy of the city, and Evylyn wondered uncomfortably if it bored every one as it bored her. Apparently not. They were all listening attentively. Evylyn broke in at the first gap. "Where've you been living, Mr. Ahearn?" she asked interestedly. Then she remembered that Mrs. Ahearn had told her, but it didn't matter. Harold mustn't talk so much. He was such an ASS when he'd been drinking. But he plopped directly back in. "Tell you, Ahearn. Firs' you wanna get a house up here on the hill. Get Stearne house or Ridgeway house. Wanna have it so people say: 'There's Ahearn house.' Solid, you know, tha's effec' it gives." Evylyn flushed. This didn't sound right at all. Still Ahearn didn't seem to notice anything amiss, only nodded gravely. "Have you been looking---" But her words trailed off unheard as Harold's voice boomed on. "Get house--tha's start. Then you get know people. Snobbish town first toward outsider, but not long--after know you. People like you"--he indicated Ahearn and his wife with a sweeping gesture--"all right. Cordial as an'thin' once get by first barrer-bar-barrer--" He swallowed, and then said "barrier," repeated it masterfully. Evylyn looked appealingly at her brother-in-law, but before he could intercede a thick mumble had come crowding out of Tom Lowrie, hindered by the dead cigar which he gripped firmly with his teeth. "Huma uma ho huma ahdy um---" "What?" demanded Harold earnestly. Resignedly and with difficulty Tom removed the cigar--that is, he removed part of it, and then blew the remainder with a WHUT sound across the room, where it landed liquidly and limply in Mrs. Ahearn's lap. "Beg pardon," he mumbled, and rose with the vague intention of going after it. Milton's hand on his coat collapsed him in time, and Mrs. Ahearn not ungracefully flounced the tobacco from her skirt to the floor, never once looking at it. "I was sayin'," continued Tom thickly, "'fore 'at happened,"--he waved his hand apologetically toward Mrs. Ahearn--"I was sayin' I heard all truth that Country Club matter." Milton leaned and whispered something to him. "Lemme 'lone," he said petulantly; "know what I'm doin'. 'Ats what they came for." Evylyn sat there in a panic, trying to make her mouth form words. She saw her sister's sardonic expression and Mrs. Ahearn's face turning a vivid red. Ahearn was looking down at his watch-chain, fingering it. "I heard who's been keepin' y' out, an' he's not a bit better'n you. I can fix whole damn thing up. Would've before, but I didn't know you. Harol' tol' me you felt bad about the thing---"