"The socks, you Reuben, should match the shirt," said Stover, completing his toilet under a diplomatic assumption of persiflage. "Well, you are a lovely thing," said McCarthy, when the new collar and the selected necktie had transformed Stover. "Lovely! lovely! you should go out and have the girls fondle you." At this moment Bob Story arrived, as fate would have it, with an invitation to dinner at his home. "Sis is back with a few charmers from Farmington and they're crazy to meet you." "Oh, I say," said Stover in sudden alarm. "I'm the limit on the fussing question." "Yes, he is," said McCarthy maliciously. "Why, they fall down before him and beg him to step on them." "You shut up," said Stover, with wrath in his eye. "Why, Bob, look at him, isn't he gotten up just to charm and delight? You'll have to put a fence around him to keep them off." "In an hour," said Story, making for the door. "Hunter and Hungerford are coming." "Hold up." "Delighted you're coming." "I say--" "There's a Miss Sparkes--just crazy about you. You're in luck. Remember the name--Miss Sparkes." "Story--Bob, come back here!" "Au reservoir!" "I can't go--I won't--" But here Dink, leaning over the banister, heard a gleeful laugh float up and the sudden banging of the door. He rushed back frantically to the room and craned out the window, to see Bob Story sliding around the corner with his fingers spread in a gesture that is never anything but insulting. He closed the window violently and returned to the center of the room. "Damn!" "Pooh!" said McCarthy, chuckling with delight. "Petticoats!" "Alas!" "A lot of silly, yapping, gushing, fluffy, giggling, tee-heeing, tittering, languishing, vapid, useless--" "My boy, immense! Go on!" "Confound Bob Story, why the deuce did he rope me into this? I loathe females." "And one just dotes on you," said McCarthy, with the expression of a Cheshire cat. "I won't go," said Stover loudly. "Are you going in that green symphony?" "Why not?" In the midst of this quarrel, Joe Hungerford entered, with a solemn face. "You're going to this massacre at Story's?" "Don't I look like it?" said Dink crossly. "We'll go over together then," said Hungerford, with a sigh of relief. "I say, help yourself to a cigar, Joe," said McCarthy, with the air of a Maecenas. "_Cuba Libre_?" said Hungerford, approaching the box. "And _à bas_ Spain!" Hungerford examined the cigars with a certain amount of caution which was not lost on the room-mates. "How many of these have you smoked?" he asked, turning to them with interest. "Oh, about three apiece." "How do you like 'em?" "Wonderful!" said Dink loudly. "Wonderful!" said McCarthy. The three lit up simultaneously. "What did you pay for yours?" said Hungerford, with a sort of inward concentration on the flavor. "Ten bright silver ones." "I paid twenty-five for two. How do they taste?" "Wonderful!" "Troutman only paid seven-fifty for his box." "What!"