"Yes. Why?" "You look as if you did--you're kind of--badly nourished. Know any rag-time?" Pope shuddered. "I do not." "Too bad! I was going to ask you to stir up the ivories." "Nobody likes good music any more," growled the critic, seating himself upon the bench. His sensitive fingers idly rippled the length of the keyboard and a flood of melody filled the room. "Say! You do know your way around, don't you? Can't you pick out 'Here Comes My Daddy Now' with one finger?" The musician groaned. "What a pity!" After a moment he murmured, "I improvise a good deal." The instrument, perhaps for the first time in its life, began to vibrate and ring to something besides the claptrap music of the day. Once he had found a means of occupying himself, Pope surrendered to his impulse and in a measure forgot his surroundings. A short time later Lorelei turned from the kitchenette to find Adoree Demorest poised, a salad-bowl in one hand, a wooden spoon gripped in the other, on her face a rapt expression of beatitude. "Have you rubbed the dish with garlic?" inquired Lorelei. Adoree roused herself slowly. "Lordy!" she whispered. "I'd give both legs to the knee and one eye if I could play like that. The mean little shrimp!" The embers of her resentment were still glowing when the four finally seated themselves at the table. A furtive glance in Pope's direction showed that he was studiously avoiding her eyes: she prepared once more to begin the process of flaying him. "You've been away for some time, haven't you?" Bob was asking. Pope nodded. "I hate New York. I went as far away as I could get, and--I managed to return just two jumps ahead of the sheriff. It will take me six months to pay my debts. I'm a grand little business man." "What was it this time? Mining?" "No. Poultry." Adoree pricked up her ears. "You went West, eh?" pursued Bob. "No. East--Long Island. Did you know there are parts of the Island that are practically unexplored by civilized man? Well, there are. They're as remote from the influence of New York as the heart of New Guinea." Pope's thin lips parted in a smile. "The natives are all foreigners, too. There are Portuguese pickle-pickers and hairy-handed Hollanders who live with their heads lower than their knees, and weed-pulling wops who skulk in patches of cauliflower and lettuce, but as for American settlers--there ain't none." Adoree complacently felt that she had the critic talking against time, and the consciousness of her disturbing over him gratified her intensely. "Their language is a sort of Reverse English," Pope went on, "and it's a hard country to explore because of the dialects. Some of the people are flesh-eaters, but the price of poultry is so high and the freight on eggs is so low that most of them are vegetarians. That's what got me started, in the first place--I saw a great opportunity to make money; so I found a farm on a lake, bought it, and went to raising ducks."