His tone was vastly bitter. He continued to mutter sullenly to himself--a way he had--until we had disposed of the luggage and I was laying out his afternoon and evening wear in one of the small detached houses to which we had been assigned. Nor did he sink his grievance on the arrival of the Mixer a few moments later. He now addressed her as “Ma” and asked if she had “the makings,” which puzzled me until she drew from the pocket of her skirt a small cloth sack of tobacco and some bits of brown paper, from which they both fashioned cigarettes. “The smart set of Red Gap is holding its first annual meeting for the election of officers back there,” she began after she had emitted twin jets of smoke from the widely separated corners of her set mouth. “I say, you know, where’s Hyphen old top?” demanded Cousin Egbert in a quite vile imitation of one speaking in the correct manner. “Fishing,” answered the Mixer with a grin. “In a thousand dollars’ worth of clothes. These here Eastern trout won’t notice you unless you dress right.” I thought this strange indeed, but Cousin Egbert merely grinned in his turn. “How’d he get you into this awfully horrid rough place?” he next demanded. “Made him. ‘This or Red Gap for yours,’ I says. The two weeks in New York wasn’t so bad, what with Millie and me getting new clothes, though him and her both jumped on me that I’m getting too gay about clothes for a party of my age. ‘What’s age to me,’ I says, ‘when I like bright colours?’ Then we tried his home-folks in Boston, but I played that string out in a week. “Two old-maid sisters, thin noses and knitted shawls! Stick around in the back parlour talking about families--whether it was Aunt Lucy’s Abigail or the Concord cousin’s Hester that married an Adams in ‘78 and moved out west to Buffalo. I thought first I could liven them up some, _you_ know. Looked like it would help a lot for them to get out in a hack and get a few shots of hooch under their belts, stop at a few roadhouses, take in a good variety show; get ‘em to feeling good, understand? No use. Wouldn’t start. Darn it! they held off from me. Don’t know why. I sure wore clothes for them. Yes, sir. I’d get dressed up like a broken arm every afternoon; and, say, I got one sheath skirt, black and white striped, that just has to be looked at. Never phased them, though. “I got to thinking mebbe it was because I made my own smokes instead of using those vegetable cigarettes of Jackson’s, or maybe because I’d get parched and demand a slug of booze before supper. Like a Sunday afternoon all the time, when you eat a big dinner and everybody’s sleepy and mad because they can’t take a nap, and have to set around and play a few church tunes on the organ or look through the album again.” “Ain’t that right? Don’t it fade you?” murmured Cousin Egbert with deep feeling.