“Who said they wasn’t, you witless Jake?  They don’t make petticoats of this tatting stuff.  They use it for trimming like.”

“Trimming on the petticoats?”

“And the lingery.”

“But you just now said petticoats and lingery was the same thing.”

“Oh, my Gawd!  They are!  They are the same thing.  Don’t y’ understand? 
Petticoats is always lingery, but lingery ain’t always petticoats. 
See?”

“I don’t.  I don’t see a-tall.  I think yo’re goin’ crazy.  That’s what I think.  Nemmine.  Nemmine.  If you say lingery at me again I won’t let you introduce me to yore girl.”

“She ain’t my girl,” denied Racey, reddening.

“But you’d like her to be, huh?  Shore.  What does she think about it?  Which one of ’em is she?”

“I didn’t say neither of ’em was.  You always did take too much for granted, Swing.”

“I ain’t taking too much for granted with you blushing thataway.  Which one?  Tell a feller.  C’mon, stingy.”

“Shucks,” said Racey, “I should think you could tell.  The best-looking one, of course.”

“But they’s two of ’em, feller, and they both look mighty fine to me.  Take that one with the white shirt and the slick brown hair.  She’s as pretty as a li’l red wagon.  A reg’lar doll baby, you bet you.”

“Doll baby!  Ain’t you got any eyes?  That brown-haired girl—­and I want to say right here I never did like brown hair—­is Joy Blythe, Bill Derr’s girl.  Of course, Bill’s a good feller and all that, and if he likes that style of beauty it ain’t anything against him.  But that other girl now.  Swing, you purblind bat, when it comes to looks, she lays all over Joy Blythe like four aces over a bobtailed flush.”

“She does, huh?  You got it bad.  Here’s hoping it ain’t catchin’.  I’ve liked girls now and then my own self, but I never like one so hard I couldn’t see nothing good in another one.  Now, humanly speaking, either of them two on the porch would suit me.”

“And neither of ’em ain’t gonna suit you, and you can gamble on that, Swing Tunstall.”

“Oh, ain’t they?  We’ll see about that.  You act like I never seen a girl before.  Lemme tell you I know how to act all right in company.  I ain’t any hilltop Reuben.”

“If you ain’t, then pin up yore shirt where I tore the buttons off.  You look like the wrath o’ Gawd.”

“You ain’t something to write home about yore own self.  I can button up my vest and look respectable, but they’s hayseeds and shuttlin’s all over you, and besides I got a necktie, and yore handkerchief is so sloshed up you can’t tie it round yore neck.  Yo’re a fine-lookin’ specimen to go a-visitin’.  A fi-ine-lookin’ specimen.  And anyway yo’re drunk.  You can’t go.”

“Hell I can’t,” snapped Racey, brushing industriously.  “They never seen me.”

“But Luke Tweezy did,” chuckled Swing.

“What’s Luke got to do with it?” Racey inquired without looking up.