“Do regular guys wear borrowed clothes?  Not where I come from, they don’t.”

“Aw, them hicks!  Well, you can buy what you want, if that suits you better.  I’ll take you to a place that keeps open evenings.  There’ll be time enough.  The Frolic don’t hardly git woke up till ten or ’leven, anyway.”

“At that it will be closed for the night before we arrive,” Johnny stated morosely.  “It’s a wonder to me you let the ocean stop you, Bland.

“Why didn’t you go on and light in Japan?  We could have caught a boat back then, instead of walking.”

Once more Bland protested and explained and defended himself.  But Johnny had already drifted off into troubled meditation rendered somewhat vague and inconsequential by his rapid changes of financial condition, moods, environment—­the brief ecstasy of his triumphant flight that had so ridiculous a climax.  Small wonder that Bland’s whining voice failed to register anything but a dreary monotone of meaningless words in Johnny’s ears.  Small wonder that Johnny’s thoughts dwelt upon little worries that could have no possible bearing upon the big things he meant to do.

How much would a new propeller cost?  Would all the barber shops be closed when they reached town?  He needed a haircut and a hot bath before he would feel fit to walk the streets.  Should he take at once the position he meant to maintain, and stop at the best hotel in town, as an aviator who owned the plane he flew and had a roll of money in his pocket might be expected to do?  Or should he go to some cheap rooming house and save a few dollars, and sink into obscurity among the city’s strange thousands?

He remembered the headlines concerning him—­front-page headlines that crowded Europe’s war into second place!  He had not seen anything much about himself lately, though the jailer had brought him a paper every morning.  Certainly his misfortune had not been given the prominence accorded to his disappearance.  If he should go to some good hotel and register as John Ivan Jewel, Tucson, Arizona, the reporters might remember the name.  Probably they would, and his arrival would be announced—­

What would they think, if he walked in just as he was; leather coat, aviator’s cap with the ear-tabs flapping, corduroy breeches tucked into riding boots that needed a shine and the heels straightened?  Would they put him out, or would they think he was so rich and famous he didn’t give a darn?

He wondered what Mary V would think, if she knew that he was here in Los Angeles.  Would she care whether she ever saw him again?  Or could girls forget a fellow all at once?  Were they still engaged, so long as she did not return his ring?  He wished he knew what was the rule in cases like this.  Then it struck him that Mary V could not return the ring now if she wanted to.  She would not know where to send it.  She might have sent it to him while he was in jail—­but probably she feared that the reporters might hear about it.  How much would a propeller cost, any way?  There would probably be more than that broken—­the Thunder Bird had turned over with quite a jolt.