“Ain’t it jolly,” I says to him while he was writing another check on the end of the bar.  “This is the first time us ladies ever did clean out every last object at a bazaar.  Not a thing left; and I wish we’d got in twice as much, because Sandy don’t do things by halves when his money comes easy from some poor dub that has thought highly of himself as a thinker about money matters.”  He pretends not to hear me because of signing his name very carefully to the check.  “And what a sweet little home you’ll build for the Wales family!” I says.  “I can see it now, all ornamented up, and with one of these fancy bungalow names up over the front gate—­probably they’ll call it The Breakers!”

But he wouldn’t come back; so I left him surrounded by the wreck of his former smartiness and went home.  At the door where the treasures had been massed not a solitary thing was left but a plush holder for a whisk broom, with hand-painted pansies on the front; and I decided I could live without that.  Tim Mahoney was there, grouching round about having to light up the hall next night for the B’nai B’rith; and I told him to take it for himself.  He already had six drawnwork doilies and a vanity box with white and red powder in it.

As I go by the Hong Kong Quick Lunch, Sandy and three or four others is up on stools; the Chinaman, cooking things behind the counter, is wearing a lavender-striped silk dressing sacque and a lace boudoir cap with pink ribbons in it.  Yes; we’d all had a purple night of it!

Next day about noon I’m downtown and catch sight of Cousin Egbert setting in the United States Grill having breakfast; so I feel mean enough to go in and gloat over him some more.  I think to find him all madded up and mortified; but he’s strangely cheerful for one who has suffered.  He was bearing up so wonderful that I asked why.

“Ain’t you heard?” says he, blotting round in his steak platter with a slice of bread.  “Well, I got even with that Wales outfit just before daylight—­that’s all!”

“Talk on,” I beg, quite incredulous.

“I didn’t get to bed till about two,” he says, “and at three I was woke up by the telephone.  It’s this big stiff Len Wales, that had ought to have his head taken off because it only absorbs nourishment from his system and gives nothing in return.  He’s laughing in a childish frenzy and says is this me?  I says it is, but that’s neither here nor there, and what does he want at this hour?  ‘It’s a good joke on you,’ he says, ‘for the little woman got it on the third trial.’  ‘Got what?’ I wanted to know.  ‘Got that solitaire,’ he yells.  ’And it’s a good joke on you, all right, because now you owe her the thousand dollars; and I hate to bother you, but you know how some women are that have a delicate, high-strung organization.  She says she won’t be able to sleep a wink if you don’t bring it up to her so she can have all our little treasure under her pillow; and I think, myself, it’s better to have it all settled and satisfactory while the iron’s hot, and you’d probably prefer it that way, too; and she says she won’t mind, this time, taking your check, though the actual money would be far more satisfactory, because you know what women are—­”