“I have a fine job for you, John——”     

       “King's X,” Webster interrupted, and showed both hands with the fingers crossed. “No plotting against my peace and comfort, Neddy. Haven't I told you I'm all dressed up for the first time in three years, that I have money in my pocket and more in bank? Man, I'm going to tread the primrose path for a year before I get back into the harness again.”     

       Jerome waved a deprecatory hand, figuratively brushing aside such feeble and inconsequential argument. “Are you foot-loose?” he demanded.     

       “I'm not. I'm bound in golden chains——”     

       “Married, eh? Great Scott, I might have guessed it. So you're on your honeymoon, eh?”     

       “No such luck, you vichy-drinking iconoclast. If you had ever gotten far enough from this club during the past fifteen years to get a breath of real fresh air, you'd understand why I want to enjoy civilization for a week or two before I go back to a mine superintendent's cabin on some bleak hill. No, sir-ee. Old Jeremiah Q. Work and I have had a falling out. I'm going on to New York and attend the opera, see all the good plays, mush around through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, drink tea, and learn to tango.” Webster sighed gustily. “Lord, Neddy, how I long for the fleshpots. I've slept under the desert stars so long I want electric signs for a change. Bacon and beans and sour dough are wonderful when one hasn't something better, but I crave an omelette soufflé drenched in cognac, and the cognac afire. Yes, and I want an obsequious waiter to hurry in with it and then take a dollar tip from me afterward for all the world like he was doing me a favour by accepting it. Dad burn your picture, Neddy, I want some class! I've been listening to a dago shift-boss playing the accordeon for three years—and he could only play three tunes. Now I want Sousa's band. I want to hive up in a swell hotel and leave a call for six o'clock—and then when they call me, I want to curse them, roll over, and go to sleep again. I've been bathing in tepid, dirty water in a redwood sluice-box, and now I desire a steam room and a needle shower and an osteopath. I've been bossing Greasers and Italians and was forced to learn their language to get results, and now I want to speak my mother tongue to my old friends. The last funny story I heard had whiskers on it when Rameses was playing hop-scotch in 

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