"It naturally would be."
"I'd like to rest awhile. Perhaps then I could think more clearly."
"You come with me," he said, "and I'll make some coffee. That'll brace you up. Or if you'd prefer something stronger, I have that, too."
"Thank you," she said, "but the coffee will do."
"My house is only a stone's throw from here and we'll be there in no time."
Later as she sat opposite him at the table, sipping coffee and eating a cold roast beef sandwich, she decided that at last Providence had seen fit to be kind to her. It was a belated friendliness but nevertheless she was appreciative. Her companion was a talkative individual. His name was Ed Trine, he said, and he wrote stories and poetry for magazines when they would take them. He meant some day to do justice to his superb talent and write interviews with other great people.
He was a tall, lean, lanky individual with a breezy easy style and a large amount of self-love. While Mary ate he told her about his life. He had been about a bit, and to hear him tell it, no important pie was complete that didn't have his finger in it. She could not help wondering whether he considered that Washington and Lincoln were good too.
"And now," said he after rhapsodizing about himself for fully half an hour, '"you know something about me. What about you?"
"I don't know where to begin," Mary faltered.
"Begin at the end," he said airily, "and work up to the beginning. That's what I attribute my success to."
"Oh," she said naively, "so you're successful?"
"Slightly."
"And what is success?"
"Success is being able to eat four meals a day instead of three." "That's not a bad definition."
"We're getting off the track," he reminded her. "You haven't even told me your name."
"No objection to that. Louella Leota."
"That, sounds too good to be true."
16
