“It suits me here,” Doret replied. The other regarded him steadily. “I've made no mistake,” he asserted. “I could almost say how long you were up for, and a few other little things too. I don't know what you're doing in this dump, but here we both are.” He waited for nothing more, ascending quickly to the hall. The two made their way into the improvised barber shop. “You've got me wrong,” Doret still insisted. “Who is it, Lem?” Bella demanded at the door. As she spoke an expression of geniality overspread her face, daubed with paint and discontent. “Why, I'll tell you--I'm June Bowman.” “That don't mean anything to us,” Lemuel continued. “The best thing you can do is keep right on going.” “Not that Fourth Ward stew?” Bella asked eagerly. He nodded. “Lem's kind of died on his feet,” she explained in a palpable excuse of her husband's ignorance; “he don't read the papers nor nothing. But of course I've heard of you, Mr. Bowman. We're glad to see you.” “Keep right along,” Lemuel Doret repeated. His face was dark and his mouth hardly more than a pinched line. “Now, who are you?” Bowman inquired. “I'll tell you,” Bella put in, “since his manners have gone with everything else. This is Snow Doret. If you know the live men that name will be familiar to you.” “I seem to remember it,” he admitted. “If Snow went in the city it's Lemuel here,” Doret told him. His anger seethed like a kettle beginning to boil. “Well, if Snow ever went I guess I'm in right. The truth is I got to lay off for a little, and this seems first-rate. I can explain it in a couple of words: Things went bad----” “Wasn't it the election?” Bella asked politely. “In a way,” he answered with a bow. “You're all right. A certain party, you see, was making some funny cracks--a reform dope; and he got in other certain parties' light, see? Word was sent round, and when a friend and me come on him some talk was passed and this public nuisance got something. It was all regular and paid for----” “I read about it,” Bella interrupted. “He died in the ambulance.” “Then I was slipped the news that they were going to elect me the pretty boy, and I had to make a break. Only temporary, till things are fixed. Thus you see me scattered with hayseed. I was walking through for a lift to Lancaster, where there are some good fellows; but when I saw Snow here taking the air I knew there was one nearer.” “Lemuel; and I'm no good fellow.” “That's the truth,” his wife added thinly. “Here is the only one in this house.” She touched her abundant self. “Then I can put up?” “No,” Lemuel Doret told him. “This is a house of God's.” Bella laughed in a rising hysterical key.