"He gave me of his hospitality, that was all," she said. "And I can
vouch for his fried potatoes; while for his coffee, it is
excellent--when one is very hungry."
"Ingrate!" he managed to articulate, and thereby to gain a smile, ere
he was introduced to a cleanly built lieutenant of the Mounted Police,
who stood by the fireplace discussing the grub proposition with a
dapper little man very much out of place in a white shirt and stiff
collar.
Thanks to the particular niche in society into which he happened to be
born, Corliss drifted about easily from group to group, and was much
envied therefore by Del Bishop, who sat stiffly in the first chair he
had dropped into, and who was waiting patiently for the first person to
take leave that he might know how to compass the manoeuvre. In his
mind's eye he had figured most of it out, knew just how many steps
required to carry him to the door, was certain he would have to say
good-by to Frona, but did not know whether or not he was supposed to
shake hands all around. He had just dropped in to see Frona and say
"Howdee," as he expressed it, and had unwittingly found himself in
company.
Corliss, having terminated a buzz with a Miss Mortimer on the decadence
of the French symbolists, encountered Del Bishop. But the pocket-miner
remembered him at once from the one glimpse he had caught of Corliss
standing by his tent-door in Happy Camp.
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