"You need another cocktail," suggested Baxter, after sipping one himself and forgetting the need for reserve in his remarks. "You mustn't be a bum sport at a dance like this, Miss Barton." "Oh, Mr. Baxter, I don't dare go home with a breath like cocktails. You know Mary and I sleep together," objected Lorna. "Don't worry about that, little girlie," said Baxter. "She won't mind it to-night." To Burke's keen ears there was a shade of hidden menace in the words. "Come on, now, just this one," said Baxter coaxingly. "It won't hurt. There's always room for one more." What a temptation it was for the muscular policeman to swing around and shake the miserable wretch as one would a cur! But Bobbie had learned the value of controlling his temper; that is one of the first requisites of a policeman's as well as of an army man's life. "Do you know, Mr. Baxter," said Lorna, after she had yielded to the insistence of her companion, "that cocktail makes me a little dizzy. I guess it will take me a long while to get used to such drinks. You know, I've been brought up in an awfully old-fashioned way. My father would simply kill me if he thought I drank beer--and as for cocktails and highballs and horse's necks, and all those real drinks ... well, I hate to think of it. Ha! ha!" And she laughed in a silly way which made Burke know that she was beginning to feel the effect. "I wonder if I hadn't better assert myself right now?" he mused, pretending to eat a morsel. "It would cause a commotion, but it would teach her a lesson, and would teach her father to keep a closer watch." Just then he heard his own name mentioned by the girl behind. "Say, Mr. Baxter, you came just at the right time to-night. That Burke who was calling on father is a stupid policeman, whom he met in the hospital, and I was being treated to a regular sermon about life and wickedness and a lot of tiresome rot. I don't like policemen, do you?" "I should say not!" was Baxter's heartfelt answer. They were silent an instant. "A policeman, you say, eh?" "Yes; I certainly don't think he's fit to call on nice people. The next think we know father will have firemen and cab-drivers and street cleaners, I suppose. They're all in the same class to me--just servants." "What precinct did he come from?" Baxter's tone was more earnest than it had been. Burke's face reddened at the girl's slur, but he continued his waiting game. "Precinct? What's that? I don't know where he came from. He's a New York policeman, that's all I found out. It didn't interest me, why should it you? Oh, Mr. Baxter, look at that beautiful willow plume on that girl's hat. She is a silly-looking girl, but that is a wonderful hat." Baxter grunted and seemed lost in thought. Burke espied Jimmie the Monk meandering through the tables, in company with a heavy, smooth-faced man whose eyes were directed from even that distance toward the table at which Lorna sat.