“Want to know! Say, you waitress!” Of the love-making of Warble and Big Bill Petticoat there is nothing to be reported which may not be read in any Satevepost serial, which may not be heard at any summer resort, in any winter garden. They were zoology and history. Their speech was free silver and their silence was golden. It was a non-stop courtship. All the plump beauty of youth and all the assured complacence of a well-to-do married man kept them up in the air. Petticoat wasn't a married man, but he had their technique. They took a walk, and followed a roundabout way. Then they sat on a bank, and his arm followed a roundabout way. She seemed more young and tender than ever, in a simple white muslin frock and blue sash. Her broad-leafed hat was decked with a few pink roses, and roll-top white socks added a good deal to the picture. Petticoat was charmed. “Golly, but I love you, Warble!” he cried. She did not answer, but she touched the upper edge of the wallet in his breast pocket with an exploring gesture. “You think I'm too darn aesthetic! Well, you're not, and so we ought to mate. We're complementary to one another, like air and sunshine or light and shade.” “Or pork and beans, or pie and cheese.” “Yes, or like stout and porter--I'll be the porter, oh--what's the use of talking? Let my lips talk to you!” He kissed her cheek, imprinting thereon a Cupid's bow, by reason of his own addiction to the lipstick. Warble rubbed it off with the back of her hand, and said, “Oh, pleathe--pleathe.” She wondered if she ought to have said thank you, but it was only a drifting thought and she turned the other cheek. Then she smiled her engaging smile and they were engaged. Later in the game, she said, with pretty diffidence, “I would like to thee Butterfly Thenter.” And she blushed like the inside of those pink meat melons. “I knew it!” and Petticoat produced a pile of Sunday Picture Supplements. Her cheek nested in his permanent wave, Warble studied the pictures. They were the last word in artistic architecture. Truly, Butterfly Center, where Petticoat lived, was a veritable Utopia, Arcadia, Spotless Town and Happy Valley all rolled into one. Broad streets, arching trees, sublimated houses, glorified shops--it seemed to Warble like a flitter-work Christmas card from the drug-store. “How'd you like to scoot up there with me in a fast aeroplane?” he jollied her. “It might be--a lark--” she dubioused. “But here's the picture!” and proudly he exhibited a full length view of his own home. “Ptomaine Haul,” he exploited, proudly. “Built every inch of it from the busy little ptomaines. Coral insects nothing on that, eh? And here's the sort of people I practice on. Old Leathersham, now--he has a corking château--French Renaissance. And Mrs. Charity Givens--she has a Georgian shack. And, oh, yes, here's Iva Payne. She's one of my most profitable patients--sick all the time.” Warble studied the pictures.