It was queer how a nice girl
like Marie would hang on to some cheap guy like Bud Moore.
Regular fellows didn't stand any show--unless they played what
cards happened to fall their way. Joe, warned by her
indifference, set himself very seriously to the problem of
playing his cards to the best advantage.
He went into a flower store--disdaining the banked
loveliness upon the corners--and bought Marie a dozen great,
heavy-headed chrysanthemums, whose color he could not name to
save his life, so called them pink and let it go at that. They
were not pink, and they were not sweet--Joe held the bunch
well away from his protesting olfactory nerves which were not
educated to tantalizing odors--but they were more expensive
than roses, and he knew that women raved over them. He expected
Marie to rave over them, whether she liked them or not.
Fortified by these, groomed and perfumed and as prosperous
looking as a tobacco salesman with a generous expense account may
be, he went to San Jose on an early evening train that carried a
parlor car in which Joe made himself comfortable. He fooled even
the sophisticated porter into thinking him a millionaire,
wherefore he arrived in a glow of self-esteem, which bred much
optimism.
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