The loungers on the veranda were familiars of the pair; hailed them with cacklings; and one began to sing, in a voice all tin:
Right straight to the moving-pitcher show.
Oh, you bashful vamp!"
The girl laughed airily. "God, but you guys are wise!" she said. "Come on, Wallie."
Walter stared at his sister; then grinned faintly, and nodded at Russell as the latter lifted his hat in salutation. Alice uttered an incoherent syllable of exclamation, and, as she began to walk faster, she bit her lip hard, not in order to look wistful, this time, but to help her keep tears of anger from her eyes.
Russell laughed cheerfully. "Your brother certainly seems to have found the place for 'colour' today," he said. "That girl's talk must be full of it."
But Alice had forgotten the colour she herself had used in accounting for Walter's peculiarities, and she did not understand. "What?" she said, huskily.
"Don't you remember telling me about him? How he was going to write, probably, and would go anywhere to pick up types and get them to talk?"
She kept her eyes ahead, and said sharply, "I think his literary tastes scarcely cover this case!"
