He give me one look--I was festooned a little out o' the ordinary--an' then he begins. First he'd sing a chant about how tickled he was to meet up with me, an' then he'd sermonize most doleful about how untasteful it was to commit such a havoc as that in a hotel lobby, especially with a dog what had been trained to have quiet an' refined manners. I finally refused to hold my safety valve down any longer; an' I grabbed him under the arms an' waltzed him over the marble, while Cupid frolicked around us an' Bill kicked me on the shins. I had had too many things happen to me in a small space o' time to be altogether sane, an' it took a good many kicks on the shins to get me down to a practical basis again. Bill was plumb disgusted; but Jessamie, who had seen the last part of it, had to join in with the rest o' the crowd an' have a laugh. Bill refused to eat unless we could have a private dinin' room. Not on Cupid's account neither; he'd got civilized enough to stand for Cupid bein' treated like a dog by this time; but it was me he was scared of, an' I sensed it, an' refused to feed with him at all unless it would be in the main mess hall, an' Jessamie voted with me; so Bill had to give in. He didn't want to make the contrast too strong, so he slid into a dark suit instead of the real caper, while I wiggled into my champagne apron an' marched in like I was a foreign delegate. Well, you should have seen Bill--his mouth took on the triangle droop, an' his lamps was stretched to match. I was entirely at home, et with the right forks, joshed the waiters, an' when my friends began to drop over an' pass the season's greetings, an' I presented 'em to Bill an' Jessamie, an' Bill saw that they was nothin' at all but cream, I bet you a tip that he was the worst locoed man in topsy-turvy Frisco. We had a hard time throwin' the gang off the trail; but I finally sent 'em over to the Pampered Pug restaurant, while I took Bill an' Jessamie to a quiet little spot to hold our own reunion. They had just come from a trip around the world--they was still on their honeymoon, in fact; an' I had to listen to a heap o' Sunday-school story adventures 'at they'd been havin'. After a while, though, I nudged Bill hack to the Clarenden family trail, an' he said 'at they had stopped for over a month with his friends in England, an' was posted up to the minute. "Well," sez I, as though I was inquirin' after an old pal, "how's the Earl?" "They're plumb out o' earls in that family," sez Bill. "The old one's dead an' they've hunted high an' low for the strays an' can't even find Richard." "They won't need him," sez I. "The younger son is still in good order, an' when the proper time comes I'll spring him on 'em; but I doubt if he takes the job after all." "Confound you, Happy," sez Bill, "I never can tell whether you're jokin' or not on this subject. Deuced if I ever could see where your trail could have junctioned onto the Clarenden family."