“She's been here,” Garner answered. “She told me so just now, and I want to inhale the heavenly perfume she left in this disreputable hole. Good Lord, you don't mean that you let her see those rotten slippers of mine! If you'd been half a friend you'd have kicked them out of sight, but you didn't care; you've got on a clean collar and necktie, and that plaster on your alabaster brow would admit you to the highest realm of the elect--provided the door-keeper was a woman and knew how you got your ticket. Huh! I really don't know what will become of me if I associate with you much longer. Your conduct last night upset me. I turned in to bed about two o'clock. Bob Smith was doing night-work at the hotel, and he came in and had to be told the whole thing; and he'd no sooner got to bed than Keith came in, and Bob had to hear _his_ version. I had a corking dime novel, but it was too tame after the racket you went through. The _Red Avenger_ I was trying to get interested in couldn't hold a candle, even in his bareback ride strapped to a wild mustang in a mad dash across a burning prairie, to your horse-block rescue act. What _you_ did was _new_, and I was _there_. The burning prairie business has been overdone and the love interest in the _Red Avenger_ was weak, while yours--_well!_” Garner sat down in his creaking revolving-chair and thrust his thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest. “Mine?” Carson said, coldly. “I don't exactly see your point.” “Well, the love business was there all the same,” Garner laughed, significantly; “for, thrilling as it all was, I had an eye to that. I couldn't keep from wondering how I'd have felt if I'd been in your place and had your chances.” “_My_ chances!” Dwight frowned. It was plain that he did not like Garner's bold encroachments on his natural reserve.