She was, he pondered, so darn particular. How could he ever figure out

what he ought to do? No thanks; much obliged, but guessed he'd better

not accept her invitation to dinner. Darn sorry couldn't come but----

Had promised a fellow down at the camp to have chow with him.

If in this Milt was veracious, he was rather fickle to his newly

discovered friend; for while Claire was finishing dinner, a solemn young

man was watching her through a window.

She was at a table for six. She was listening to a man of thirty in

riding-breeches, a stock, and a pointed nose, who bowed to her every

time he spoke, which was so frequently that his dining gave the

impression of a man eating grape-fruit on a merry-go-round. Back in

Schoenstrom, fortified by Mac and the bunch at the Old Home Lunch, Milt

would have called the man a "dude," and--though less noisily than the

others--would have yelped, "Get onto Percy's beer-bottle pants. What's

he got his neck bandaged for? Bet he's got a boil."

But now Milt yearned, "He does look swell. Wish I could get away with

those things. Wouldn't I look like a fool with my knees buttoned up,

though! And there's two other fellows in dress suits. Wouldn't mind

those so much. Gee, it must be awful where you've got so many suits of

trick clothes you don't know which one to wear.

"That fellow and Claire are talking pretty swift. He doesn't need any

piston rings, that lad. Wonder--wonder what they're talking about?

Music, I guess, and books and pictures and scenery. He's saying that no

tongue or pen can describe the glories of the Park, and then he's trying

to describe 'em. And maybe they know the same folks in New York. Lord,

how I'd be out of it. I wish----"

Milt made a toothpick out of a match, decided that toothpicks were

inelegant in his tragic mood, and longed: "Never did see her among her

own kind of folks till now. I wish I could jabber about music and stuff.

I'll learn it. I will! I can! I picked up autos in three months. I----

Milt, you're a dub. I wonder can they be talking French, maybe, or Wop,

or something? I could get onto the sedan styles in highbrow talk as long

as it was in American.

"I could probably spring linen-collar stuff about, 'Really a delightful

book, so full of delightful characters,' if I stuck by the rhetoric

books long enough. But once they begin the parlez-vous, oui, oui, I'm

a gone goose. Still, by golly, didn't I pick up Dutch--German--like a

mice? Back off, son! You did not! You can talk Plattdeutsch something

grand, as long as you keep the verbs and nouns in American. You got a

nice character, Milt, but you haven't got any parts of speech.




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