Then there's more of the coy business, aimed straight at Daggett. But Miss Rooney don't quite put it across. "That's going out to Iowy with me," says he, prompt and decided. "Oh!" says Miss Rooney, and she proceeds to pick out a white straw with a green ostrich feather a yard long. She was still lookin' puzzled, though, as we put her into the cab and started her back to the barber shop. "Must have set you back near a hundred, didn't they?" says I, as Daggett and I parts on the corner. "Almost," says he. "But it's worth it. Marthy would have looked mighty stylish in that purple one. Yes, yes! And when I get back to South Forks, the first thing I do will be to carry it up on the knoll, box and all, and leave it there. I wonder if she'll know, eh?" There wa'n't any use in my tellin' him what I thought, though. He wa'n't talkin' to me, anyway. There was a kind of a far off, batty look in his eyes as he stood there on the corner, and a drop of brine was tricklin' down one side of his nose. So we never says a word, but just shakes hands, him goin' his way, and me mine. "Chee!" says Swifty Joe, when I shows up, along about three o'clock, "you must have been puttin' away a hearty lunch!" "It wa'n't that kept me," says I. "I was helpin' hand a late one to Marthy." CHAPTER II HOW MAIZIE CAME THROUGH Then again, there's other kinds from other States, and no two of 'em alike. They float in from all quarters, some on ten-day excursions, and some with no return ticket. And, of course, they're all jokes to us at first, while we never suspicion that all along we may be jokes to them. And say, between you and me, we're apt to think, ain't we, that all the rapid motion in the world gets its start right here in New York? Well, that's the wrong dope. For instance, once I got next to a super-energized specimen that come in from the north end of nowhere, and before I was through the experience had left me out of breath. It was while Sadie and me was livin' at the Perzazzer hotel, before we moved out to Rockhurst-on-the-Sound. Early one evenin' we was sittin', as quiet and domestic as you please, in our twelve by fourteen cabinet finished dinin' room on the seventh floor. We was gazin' out of the open windows watchin' a thunder storm meander over towards Long Island, and Tidson was just servin' the demitasses, when there's a ring on the 'phone. Tidson, he puts down the tray and answers the call. "It's from the office, sir," says he. "Some one to see you, sir." "Me?" says I. "Get a description, Tidson, so I'll know what to expect." At that he asks the room clerk for details, and reports that it's two young ladies by the name of Blickens. "What!" says Sadie, prickin' up her ears. "You don't know any young women of that name; do you, Shorty?" "Why not?" says I. "How can I tell until I've looked 'em over?" "Humph!" says she. "Blickens!" "Sounds nice, don't it?" says I. "Kind of snappy and interestin'. Maybe I'd better go down and----"