Mr. Wrenn was glowing. "No, it ain't--it's mine," he achieved.
"I invented this game." Never had he so stood forth in a crowd.
He was a Bill Wrenn with the cosmopolitan polish of a
floor-walker. He stood beside the fat man as a friend of sorts,
a person to be taken perfectly seriously.
It is true that he didn't add to this spiritual triumph the
triumph of getting two more boxes of matches, for the
cashier-girl exclaimed, "No indeedy; it's my turn!" and lifted
the match machine to a high shelf behind her. But Mr. Wrenn
went out of the restaurant with his old friend, the fat man,
saying to him quite as would a wit, "I guess we get stung, eh?"
"Yuh!" gurgled the fat man.
Walking down to your store?"
"Yuh--sure--won't you walk down a piece?"
"Yes, I would like to. Which way is it?"
"Fourth Avenue and Twenty-eighth."
"Walk down with you."
"Fine!"
And the fat man seemed to mean it. He confided to Mr. Wrenn
that the fishing was something elegant at Trulen, New Jersey;
that he was some punkins at the casting of flies in fishing;
that he wished exceedingly to be at Trulen fishing with flies,
but was prevented by the manager of the cigar-store; that the
manager was an old devil; that his (the fat man's own) name was
Tom Poppins; that the store had a slick new brand of Manila
cigars, kept in a swell new humidor bought upon the advice of
himself (Mr.
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