“I was telling Henry as we came up the walk how greatly I envied you that beautiful sedan, Miss Sumner,” she gushed.  “Isn’t it a perfectly stunning car?”

Poundstone made one futile attempt to head her off.  “And I was telling Mrs. Poundstone,” he struck in with a pathetic attempt to appear humorous and condescending, “that a little jitney was our gait, and that she might as well abandon her passionate yearning for a closed car.  Angelina, my dear, something tells me I’m going to enjoy this dinner a whole lot more if you’ll just make up your mind to be real nice and resign yourself to the inevitable.”

“Never, my dear, never.”  She shook a coy finger at him.  “You dear old tightie,” she cooed, “you don’t realize what a closed car means to a woman.”  She turned to Shirley.  “How an open car does blow one around, my dear!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Shirley innocently.

“Heard the McKinnon people had a man killed up in their woods yesterday, Colonel,” Poundstone remarked, hoping against hope to divert the conversation.

“Yes.  The fellow’s own fault,” Pennington replied.  “He was one of those employees who held to the opinion that every man is the captain of his own soul and the sole proprietor of his own body—­hence that it behooved him to look after both, in view of the high cost of safety-appliances.  He was warned that the logging-cable was weak at that old splice and liable to pull out of the becket—­and sure enough it did.  The free end of the cable snapped back like a whip, and—­”

“I hold to the opinion,” Mrs. Poundstone interrupted, “that if one wishes for a thing hard enough and just keeps on wishing, one is bound to get it.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Poundstone impressively, “if you would only confine yourself to wishing, I assure you your chances for success would be infinitely brighter.”

There was no mistaking this rebuke; even two cocktails were powerless to render Mrs. Poundstone oblivious to it.  Shirley and her uncle saw the Mayor’s lady flush slightly; they caught the glint of murder in His Honour’s eye; and the keen intelligence of each warned them that closed cars should be a closed topic of conversation with the Poundstones.  With the nicest tact in the world, Shirley adroitly changed the subject to some tailored shirt-waists she had observed in the window of a local dry-goods emporium that day, and Mrs. Poundstone subsided.

About nine o’clock, Shirley, in response to a meaning glance from her relative, tactfully convoyed Mrs. Poundstone upstairs, leaving her uncle alone with his prey.  Instantly Pennington got down to business.

“Well,” he queried, apropos of nothing, “what do you hear with reference to the Northern-California-Gregon Railroad?”

“Oh, the usual amount of wind, Colonel.  Nobody knows what to make of that outfit.”

Pennington studied the end of his cigar a moment.  “Well, I don’t know what to think of that project either,” he admitted presently, “But while it looks like a fake, I have a suspicion that where there’s so much smoke, one is likely to discover a little fire.  I’ve been waiting to see whether or not they will apply for a franchise to enter the city, but they seem to be taking their time about it.”