But of
course I've heard of you, Mr. Bowman. We're glad to see you."
"Keep right along," Lemuel Doret repeated. His face was dark and his
mouth hardly more than a pinched line.
"Now, who are you?" Bowman inquired.
"I'll tell you," Bella put in, "since his manners have gone with
everything else. This is Snow Doret. If you know the live men that name
will be familiar to you."
"I seem to remember it," he admitted.
"If Snow went in the city it's Lemuel here," Doret told him. His anger
seethed like a kettle beginning to boil.
"Well, if Snow ever went I guess I'm in right. The truth is I got to
lay off for a little, and this seems first-rate. I can explain it in a
couple of words: Things went bad----"
"Wasn't it the election?" Bella asked politely.
"In a way," he answered with a bow. "You're all right. A certain party,
you see, was making some funny cracks--a reform dope; and he got in
other certain parties' light, see? Word was sent round, and when a
friend and me come on him some talk was passed and this public nuisance
got something. It was all regular and paid for----"
"I read about it," Bella interrupted. "He died in the ambulance."
"Then I was slipped the news that they were going to elect me the
pretty boy, and I had to make a break. Only temporary, till things are
fixed. Thus you see me scattered with hayseed. I was walking through
for a lift to Lancaster, where there are some good fellows; but when I
saw Snow here taking the air I knew there was one nearer.
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