Perry tentatively gathered up the body and legs and wrapped them about him, tying the hind legs as a girdle round his waist. The effect on the whole was bad. It was even irreverent--like one of those mediaeval pictures of a monk changed into a beast by the ministrations of Satan. At the very best the ensemble resembled a humpbacked cow sitting on her haunches among blankets. “Don’t look like anything at all,” objected Perry gloomily. “No,” said Mrs. Nolak; “you see you got to have two people.” A solution flashed upon Perry. “You got a date to-night?” “Oh, I couldn’t possibly----” “Oh, come on,” said Perry encouragingly. “Sure you can! Here! Be good sport, and climb into these hind legs.” With difficulty he located them, and extended their yawning depths ingratiatingly. But Mrs. Nolak seemed loath. She backed perversely away. “Oh, no----” “C’m on! You can be the front if you want to. Or we’ll flip a coin.” “Oh, no----” “Make it worth your while.” Mrs. Nolak set her lips firmly together. “Now you just stop!” she said with no coyness implied. “None of the gentlemen ever acted up this way before. My husband----” “You got a husband?” demanded Perry. “Where is he?” “He’s home.” “Wha’s telephone number?” After considerable parley he obtained the telephone number pertaining to the Nolak penates and got into communication with that small, weary voice he had heard once before that day. But Mr. Nolak, though taken off his guard and somewhat confused by Perry’s brilliant flow of logic, stuck staunchly to his point. He refused firmly, but with dignity, to help out Mr. Parkhurst in the capacity of back part of a camel. Having rung off, or rather having been rung off on, Perry sat down on a three-legged stool to think it over. He named over to himself those friends on whom he might call, and then his mind paused as Betty Medill’s name hazily and sorrowfully occurred to him. He had a sentimental thought. He would ask her. Their love affair was over, but she could not refuse this last request. Surely it was not much to ask--to help him keep up his end of social obligation for one short night. And if she insisted, she could be the front part of the camel and he would go as the back. His magnanimity pleased him. His mind even turned to rosy-colored dreams of a tender reconciliation inside the camel--there hidden away from all the world.... “Now you’d better decide right off.” The bourgeois voice of Mrs. Nolak broke in upon his mellow fancies and roused him to action. He went to the phone and called up the Medill house. Miss Betty was out; had gone out to dinner.