"How in the world are you going to twist what I said into an inconsistency?" "I'll let you make the demonstration yourself. Here is the problem: a dealer, believing a demand to exist for a certain article, lays in a stock to supply that demand. If you, and other dear ladies who really intend to buy the article, purchased when he first offered it for sale, his estimate of the demand would have been correct. But you all have learned the habits of the shops, so instead of rushing to his counters you play 'possum until the dealer really believes that he has over-estimated the demand, and down goes the value to him and consequently the price to you. Then you rush frantically from your lairs and secure the article you have really wanted from the beginning at a bargain price. Don't you admit that you are taking advantage of the dealer?" "Oh, you men do put things in such a disagreeable way!" Merry laughed. "We have to do that to protect ourselves against the outrageous prices they charge in the first place." "It's all a game," Cosden said seriously, "and a mighty fascinating one. So long as you stick to the rules you may bluff all you choose, and the best bluffer takes the blue chips." "I'm sure I should hate it," Merry repeated. "I'm going to learn to be a teacher, so that if some one outbluffs father I can fall back upon a respectable pursuit." "Even then you'll still be in the bluffing game," chuckled Cosden. "Think of the knowledge a teacher has to assume which he doesn't possess!" "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed in despair. "Why be an iconoclast? You leave me nothing but matrimony--" "The worst bluff of all," interrupted Huntington, stepping forward from behind their chairs, immaculate in white flannels and a panama which rivaled Merry's. "Seeing Mr. Cosden in an academic mood, I could not resist the temptation to snare the nuggets of wisdom which fell from his lips. This must be my excuse for eavesdropping." "There he is," Cosden said significantly to Merry. "You'd never dream that he'd come within an ace of missing his breakfast, would you?" "Missing what?" Huntington demanded. "In what little pleasantry has my friendly critic been indulging himself?" "Let the critic answer for himself," Cosden retorted. "I predicted to Miss Thatcher the exact moment when you would appear, thus proving myself a prophet." "You take yourself too seriously, Connie. You're no prophet, nor even the son of a prophet; you're simply a good observer. Some men run a block and then wait five minutes for a car; I learned years ago that it was wiser to walk deliberately to the white post and arrive there at the precise moment. But I don't let that car get away from me, my friend." "If my memory serves me right, Mr. Huntington, you were not always so deliberate," remarked Mrs. Thatcher significantly. Huntington looked up quickly, unaware until then that the other late breakfasters had followed so closely on his heels. "The night has been telling tales," he said.