Flora only said: “Your wife has very good taste, Mr. Timney,” and sailed into the ladies’ underwear corner. Kate stuck to her like a burr. She was right at home there, and for about fifteen minutes it seemed like all the cash-boys in the world were running in and out packing away white things, just like Kate was a fairy queen giving orders. She laid down “medicine stones” on the counter till the flim-flams and thingumbobs almost dropped down off the shelves of themselves. I s’pose a man really has no business to be in a place like that, but I watched the two of ’em buy. Kate had actually got Flora going, and both of ’em emptied their sacks. Then Flora swept out, looking a hole through me, but never saying a word. I’ve heard afterward that Miss Donovan was pretty well known to be close-fisted, and it must have hurt her some to let go of all that money, just on account of an Indian squaw. But the clerks behind the counter nearly went into fits. Kate came up to me and said, “I can buy more things than she can, can’t I?” And I said, “Sure, you can, Kate; you could buy her right out of house and home!” She looked a little relieved then, but I saw she was jealous, and the worst of it was, I’d given her license to be. I tried to be as nice as I could, and bought her another necklace, and took her to see the kinetoscopes and let her look through the telescope at the moon, but I saw she was still fretting about Flora. That night I met a fellow from the Yukon, and I left Kate at the hotel and made a night of it. I went to bed with considerable of a head, and when I woke up, toward noon, Kate was gone. She didn’t show up till the next day after that. I learned afterward what happened. Kate started out bright and early to find Flora. She had got into a black dress with spangles, patent-leather shoes, and a hat as big as a penguin. She carried with her all the cash we had at the hotel, running into four figures easy. The shopping district of San Francisco ain’t such a big place, after all, and Kate and Flora only went to the best and highest-priced stores, so it wasn’t long before they met. As far as I could find out, Kate didn’t have her hatchet out at all, this trip, but she was just trying to make up to Flora, and be nice to her and show she was ready to get acquainted. You can guess what happened. Flora tried to pass Kate, but Kate just stood in the aisle like a house. It was no use for Flora to try and snub her, for Kate couldn’t understand the kind of polite slaps in the face that ladies know how to give. The only thing was to get rid of her, so Flora up and went out the front door to her carriage.