the other three "tapped" their juniors-and except for the fact that they met on Thursdays and Saturdays, like the others, there were no special manifestations connected with their doings.

Jimmy had heard that they kept in their possession the great battle club captured from the oystermen in a long-forgotten riot, and preserved it, heavily mounted in silver-but even this was a rumor merely, and there were wise ones who pronounced it a myth arising from the existence in the club of a mace bearing silver plates for each class. And there it was! That was all that Jimmy knew about them all-oh, well, there were other details, but they gave absolutely no clue to the inner meaning of things.

For instance, Jimmy had seen the gold pins-the "bugs," as the college called them-and he knew that they were never without them, and put them in their mouths when they were changing their clothes or taking a shower. Billy Sayre had nearly swallowed his once! They were gold emblems corresponding to the names of the societies, just like the cuts in the college annual above the fifteen names in heavy black type-and in the old days they had been accustomed to wear them in their ties. Incidentally, the Elihu Club was the only crowd that took in a varying number of men every year, sometimes as many as twenty-the others always took fifteen men apiece without fail.

Then, of course, they never referred to their societies in public-that was the trouble. In the fraternities, sooner or later, they let things out in conversation for a quick-witted little boy to catch-but these senior society men never peeped. And on Thursday nights, when they came back from the secret-society meetings at half past twelve, they did not talk to anyone-not even to their own roommates -theoretically.

And always dark suits and derbies! There was an idiotic tradition at one time that if a junior wore black shoes, a stand-up collar, and a derby he was "heeling" Bones; but if he wore a soft shirt, brown boots, and a derby, then he was "heeling" Keys! The converse of this theory, namely, that Bones and Keys men spent their time making notes of the sartorial appearance of prominent juniors, should have been enough to kill it, but fanciful "dope" of this sort died hard. There was one feature of this coming home from meetings on Thursdays, however, which seemed to Jimmy to be full of charm. This was the ceremony over on College Street, sometimes referred to as Keys Singing-and Jimmy was by no means the only person who used to saunter over there on a pleasant evening and stand across the street and listen.

At about half past twelve, or a little after, things began to happen. Sometimes, on a very still night, you could catch the strains of a chant, and "Sparrow" Scott and "Dandy" Baxter used to swear that they had heard a bell tolling.

"Sort of silvery sound," they would insist.

"Locomotive

down in the

yards!" Angel used to assure them-but maybe they were right.

Then all of a sudden the door would open and the fifteen men filed out one by one, with a shuffling of feet on the stone step. They lined up at the top of the stairs facing the building, and after the door had closed behind the last man they sang an old, old song called "The Troubadour," all in unison on the verse, biting off the ends of the lines-and then the chorus, in harmony with the tenors high up, thrilling in the night. You could hear them way over on the Campus if you listened . . .

singing from Palestine!
Hither I come!

Lady love, Lady love!
Welcome me home!

Then usually somebody in one of the Scientific School frater

nity houses across the street would start an alarm clock going outside his window-but at that it was difficult to spoil the effect of that song.

When they had finished they came down and lined up two by two in the street, and the fifteenth man closed the swinging gates-to show that there was no one in the building, said the college-and took his place in front. Stamp-stamp-stamp he went with his left foot, and then they were off for the Campus, all tramping in unison down the street.

Jimmy thought that this was all quite superb, and frowned upon a handful of turbulent sophomores one night who followed Keys home, singing "Oh, we are the volunteers . . ." at the top of their lungs!

And five minutes later Wolf's Head would come swinging by, on the way back from Prospect Street, but they never tramped as they marched. On the last Thursday before Tap Day almost the whole junior class used to go and watch Keys "come out"-and then there was just time to rush breathlessly up to Wolf's Head and catch them lining up outside their big gates. And then as likely as not the juniors would line up behind them and follow them home. Well, when Curly and Angel were juniors, and the season for violent "dope sessions" came around, Jimmy found himself really very much in the midst of things. He was a very canny little boy, who knew exactly how to make himself inconspicuous on the corner of a window seat-and although much of their talk was quite meaningless to him, still it was tremendously fascinating to hear it all and "get all the dope."

IT

T seemed that the great excitement in their immediate circle centered around Angel and Sparrow Scott. Sparrow was threatening to throw down Keys and wait for Bones, to the unending despair of his roommate, Dandy Baxter-and Angel was being terribly "cagy" about it and could not make up his mind what he wanted. Ham Leonard and Curly were, of course, "headed straight for Bones."

"Why, you poor fish," Curly would laugh. "Of course I'm going Bones! Did you ever see a football captain who didn't go Bones? I'll probably be the last man tapped, and get cheered by my classthey always do in all the stories . . .!"

When they politely pointed out to him that probably many football captains had "missed out," he simply grinned at them.

"Just because your father and your brother are in there," Dandy would lecture him, "and about seventy-five uncles and cousins, you needn't think they're going to hand it to you on a silver plate, you know. You may be the great upset of the year.

"Yes, I wouldn't be so damn conceited if I were you," Ham chimed in. Ham always took Curly so much more seriously than he should have. "If the dope gets around that you think yourself a dead certainty, you're liable to fall on your ear on Tap Day just as sure as shooting!"

"Oh, don't pay any attention to Corliss," Angel begged them. "He's just shooting off his face to hear himself talk. He's scared blue really-when he says he's going Bones, he means he would like very much to go Bones-don't you, you poor old broken-down athlete? Let's talk about me . . ."

"Well, what about you?" Sparrow asked him, and Jimmy could see Dandy watching him closely out of the corners of his eyes.

"Well, I-don't-know!" Angel grinned. "I'm awful liable to take the first thing that comes-and that's what I advise you to do, Sparrow, my boy. Dandy, if you want to know something you'd better listen to me

99

"Well, what?" replied Dandy. "I know it's time you made up your mind what you're going to do." "Always providing he gets tapped at all," put in Curly. "I don't see why you should go anything, Benson, just because you're president of the Glee Club-unless Keys needs you to sing tenor over there on Thursday nights! Of course you room with me, and that ought to help you . . ."

"Ham, kick him, will you?" said Angel. "Look here, Sparrow, seriously-you're not going to be a damn fool on Tap Day, are you?"

"How would I be a damn fool?" asked Sparrow, and again Jimmy saw Dandy watching every expression on his face.

"Well, frankly," continued Angel, "if Keys come for you pretty early, I think you'd be a big fool to throw them down. We all know damn well Dandy's going-he'll (Continued on page 23)

12

Heart of

the South

Montgomery

How We Americans Live-XII

By Allen D. Albert

You hear it said of many a town that it is "an easy place to live in." Montgomery, says Mr. Albert, is better than that-it is an easy place to be happy in. This doesn't mean that Montgomery is content with what it has done. At present the city is engaged in a battle of twentieth-century ideas against nineteenth-century ideas, and everybody, even a pacifist, takes sides in a fight of that kind

T

HE first Capital of the Confederacy.

Per

haps the last Capital of Anti-Suffrage. A city fairly reflective of the changing South. White porticoes behind magnolia trees downtown. English half-timbered cottages in new suburban developments. An old fountain surrounded by new business blocks.

A climate that would grow four crops a year. New names and old ones on business signs. In the heart of the black belt (referring to land, not people). Trying to achieve in twenty years what Northern neighbors have hardly been able to accomplish in fifty. And succeeding.

Will be one of the greatest cities of the South when the twentieth century has bumped party politics and social tradition.

I

F you visit only one city of the South and would know that section as it really is, choose Montgomery. If it be, further, that you have regard for courtesy, and surrender willingly to hospitality, and rejoice in the company of lovely women, you will lose your heart to Montgomery.

It is a city where it is easy to be happy. Yet you must not picture Montgomery as Southern cities are represented on the stage. Nobody that I know in Alabama says "sah." Old colored men there do not say "massah." Farmers do not ride into town on mules and are not poor white trash; they are like the farmers of Illinois and, like them, ride into town in automobiles. As for pride of ancestry, it prevails in MontMuch as it does in Albany, gomery, to be sure. N. Y. But not so obstructively as in Springfield, Mass.

The South, as a whole, has lived two periods since the Civil War. The first was a thirty years' period of political protest and accepted economic disadvantage. The second has been a twenty years' period of rebuilding, of adaptation to new conditions, of progressive financial prosperity.

Atlanta entered the second period more than twenty years ago. New Orleans less. Montgomery has kept even pace with the South.

The second period is likely to be misunderstood, it seems to me. The South is still strong on oratory, and its orators have done their worst by "the New South." In plain English, this later stage has been a period of intelligent making of money out of the South's economic opportunities-and nothing more. I, for one, am glad that after the skimping of a full generation these fine folk are at last to have money.

Yet it must be understood that this period of money-making has not been a period of assertive social progress. Indeed, with its emphasis on the

dollar, it has helped make social progress difficult. And in the South there has been since 1865 a tendency that has made social advance almost unbelievably slow.

This is a tendency to limit all discussion of the public welfare to what the Southerner calls "fundamentals of government." When the newspapers and men of that section refer to "fundamentals" of government" they do not mean anything so indefinite as richness of life for all the people. They mean two major and specific concerns:

The inviolable integrity of the several States. The impossibility of two white political parties.

by talk of "white supremacy" when no one outside the insane asylum would imperil white supremacy for a second.

Child labor in Alabama is illustration enough. The men and women I know in the State are as inherently indignant over the degradation of childhood as any I know anywhere else. They have always hated it. Yet for years they found themselves impotent, with the whole political organization of the State arguing over the Federal Constitution and invoking mistrust of the negro as warrant against change of any kind.

Their position was more baffling than that of New York City under Tammany or Chicago under Thompson. Tammany Hall and the Lundeen machine keep their power by keeping close to the mass of the people, by rendering city service-with gross partiality, it may be, but by rendering it.

In a city typically Southern, like Montgomery, modern city service has not been rendered at all, and the city government has rarely been close to the people. Ordinarily the people must be content with what they have or open the whole issue of white (Continued on page 24)

supremacy versus negro

"M

X.-The Orchid of Sleep

"Y Heaven!" cried Innes, "here is proof that the chief was right!" Wessex nodded in silent agreement. On the table lay the report of Merton, the analyst, concerning the stains upon the serviette which Harley had sent from the house of the late Sir Charles Abingdon. Briefly, it stated that the serviette had been sprinkled with some essential oil, the exact character of which Merton had found himself unable to determine, its perfume, if it ever possessed any, having disappeared. And the minute quantity obtainable from the linen rendered ordinary tests difficult to apply. The analyst's report, however, concluded as follows:

"Mr. Harley, having foreseen these difficulties, and having apparently suspected that the oil was of Oriental origin, recommended me, in the note which he inclosed with the serviette, to confer with Dr. Warwick Grey. I send a copy of a highly interesting letter which I have received from Dr. Grey, whose knowledge of Eastern poisons is unparalleled, and to whose opinion I attach immense importance."

It was the contents of this appended letter which had inspired Innes's remarks. Indeed, it contained matter which triumphantly established Paul Harley's theory that Sir Charles Abingdon had not died from natural causes. The letter was as follows:

Fire-Tongue

By Sax Rohmer

Illustrated by J. C. Coll

Into the lives of a group of Londoners has crept the influence of Fire-Tongue, a secret organization of the Himalayas. Sir Charles Abingdon fell victim to it, and the happiness of many people depends on the resourcefulness of Paul Harley, famous criminal expert, and Nicol Brinn, American millionaire adventurer, who, though accepted as a member of Fire-Tongue, is now its resourceful enemy. Harley is a prisoner in the house of Ormuz Khan, chief of Fire-Tongue; and thither Ormuz Khan brings Phyllis Abingdon, who is worried over Harley's safety. Brinn opens his fight, almost single-handed

mation upon the surface. You state that this is quite unfamiliar to you, which is not at all strange, since outside of the Himalayan districts of Northwest India I have never met with it myself.

"Respecting the character of the oil employed, however, I am in no doubt, and I actually possess a dried specimen of the flower from which it is expressed. This is poetically known among the Man

gars, one of the fighting tribes of Nepal, as the Bloom or Orchid of Sleep.

"It is found upon the lower Himalayan slopes, and bears a close resemblance to the white odontoglossum of commerce, except that the flower is much smaller. Its perfume attracts insects and sometimes small animals and reptiles, although inhalation seems to induce instant death. It may be detected in its natural state by the presence of hundreds of dead flies and insects upon the ground surrounding the plant. It is especially fatal to nocturnal insects, its perfume being stronger at night.

"Preparation of the oil is an art peculiar to members of an obscure sect established in that district, by whom it is said to be employed for the removal of enemies.

"An article is sprinkled with it, and while the perfume, which is reported to resemble that of cloves, remains perceptible, to inhale it results in immediate syncope, although by what physiological process I have never been enabled to determine.

"With the one exception which I have mentioned, during my stay in Nepal and the surrounding districts, I failed to obtain a specimen of this orchid. I have twice seen the curious purple stain upon articles of clothing worn by natives who had died suddenly and mysteriously. The Mangars simply say: 'He has offended some one. It is the flower of sleep.'

"I immediately recognized the color of the stains upon the inclosed serviette, and also the curious crystalline formation on their surface. The identity of the 'some one' to whom the Mangars refer I never established.

"I shall welcome any particulars respecting the history of the serviette.

14

"Sir Charles Abingdon was poisoned," said Wessex in a hushed voice. "For the girl's sake I hate the idea, but we shall have to get an exhumation order." "It is impossible," returned Innes shortly. "He was cremated."

"Good heavens," murmured Wessex, "I never knew."

"But after all," continued Innes, "it is just as well for everyone concerned. The known facts are sufficient to establish the murder, together with the report of Dr. Warwick Grey. But, meanwhile, are we any nearer to learning the identity of the murderer?" "We are not!" said Wessex grimly. “And, what's more, when I get to Scotland Yard I have got to face the music. First Mr. Harley goes, and now Nicol Brinn has disappeared!"

"It's almost unbelievable!" "I took him for a white man," said the detective earnestly. "I accepted his parole The for twenty-four hours. twenty-four hours expired about noon to-day, but, since he played that trick on Stokes last night, and went out of his chambers, he has vanished, utterly."

Innes stood up excitedly. "Your ideas all may be

wrong, Wessex!" he cried. "Don't you see that he may have gone the same way as the chief?"

"He was mightily anxious to get out, at any rate."

"And you have no idea where he went?"

"Not the slightest. Following his performance of last night, of course, I was compelled to install a man in the chambers, and this morning some one rang up from the house of Lord Wolverham; he is commanding officer of one of the Guards battalions, I believe. It appears that Mr. Nicol Brinn not only locked up a representative of the Criminal Investigation Department, but also stole a Rolls Royce car from outside the Cavalry Club!"

"What!" cried Innes. "Stole a car?"

"Stole Lord Wolverham's car and calmly drove away in it. We have failed to trace both car and man!" The detective inspector sighed wearily. "Well, I suppose I must get along to the Yard. Stokes has got the laugh on me this time."

EARING a very gloomy

Wexpresion, the detective

inspector proceeded on foot to New Scotland Yard, and being informed on his arrival upstairs that the assistant commissioner was expecting him, he entered the office of that great man.

The assistant commissioner, who had palpably seen military service, was a big man with very tired eyes, and a

quiet, almost apologetic manner. "Ah, detective inspector," he said as Wessex entered. "I wanted to see you about this business of Mr. Nicol Brinn." "Yes, sir,” replied Wessex; “naturally.”

"Now," the assistant commissioner turned wearily in his chair, and glanced up at his subordinate"your accepting the parole of a suspect, under the circumstances, was officially improper, but I am not blaming you-not for a moment.

Mr. Nicol Brinn's well-known reputation justified your behavior." He laid one large hand firmly upon the table. "Mr. Nicol Brinn's absence alters the matter entirely."

"I am well aware of it," murmured the inspector. "Although," continued the assistant commissioner, "Mr. Brinn's record leads me to believe that he will have some suitable explanation to offer, his behavior, you will admit, is that of a guilty man?"

"It is, sir; it certainly is."

"The press, fortunately, has learned nothing of this unpleasant business, particularly unpleasant because it involves such well-known people. You will see to it, detective inspector, that all publicity is avoided if possible. Meanwhile, as a matter of ordinary departmental routine, you will circulate Mr. Brinn's description through the usual channels, and-" The assistant commissioner raised his eyebrows slightly.

"You mean that?" asked Wessex.

"Certainly, detective inspector. He must be arrested by the first officer who recognizes him." "Very good, sir. I will move in the matter at once.'

"Do so, please." The assistant commissioner sighed wearily, as one of his telephones set up a muted buzzing. "That is all for the moment, I think. Good morning."

Detective Inspector Wessex came out, quietly closing the door behind him. He felt that he had been let down very lightly. But nevertheless he was unpleasantly warm, and as he walked slowly along the corridor, he whistled softly, and: "Arrest of Mr. Nicol Brinn," he muttered. "What a headline, if they ever get it!"

nge me

in

up

.:his,

disapproved, had so utterly fallen unde spell of Ormuz Khan that long before t to Hillside she was hanging upon his a way which was almost pathetic to w On the other hand, Phil Abingdon a definite attitude of defense, and, pe because of his uncanny intuitiveness, the Persian had exerted himself to the utmost, more often addressing Phil than her companion, and striving to regain that mastery of her emotions which he had formerly achieved, at least in part.

Her feelings, however, were largely compounded of fear, and fear strengthened her defense. The repulsive part of Ormuz Khan's character became more apparent to her than did the fascination which she had once experienced. She distrusted him, distrusted him keenly. She knew at the bottom of her heart that this had always been so, but she had suffered his attentions in much the same spirit as that which imbues the naturalist who studies the habits of a poisonous reptile.

"Quick!" came a high, cool voice. “You are in danger!" Phyllis threw open the heavy leaves of the window

She knew that she was playing with fire, and in this knowledge lay a dangerous She had the utpleasure. most faith in her own common sense, and was ambitious to fence with edged tools.

When at last the car was drawn up before the porch of Hillside, and Ormuz Khan, stepping out, assisted the ladies to alight, for one moment Phil Abingdon hesitated, although she knew that it was already too late to do They were received by Mr. Rama Dass, his excellency's courteous secretary, whom she had already met, and whom Ormuz Khan presented to Mrs. McMurdoch.

So.

Almost immediately: "You have missed Mr. Harley by only a few minutes," said Rama Dass.

"What!" exclaimed Phil, her eyes opening very widely. "Oh, there is no occasion for alarm," explained the secretary in his urbane manner. "He has ventured as far as Lower Claybury station. The visit was unavoidable. He particularly requested that we should commence luncheon, but hoped to be back before we should have finished."

HIL ABINGDON glanced PH rapidly Iron On Face

the speaker to that of Ormuz Khan. But her scrutiny of those unreadable countenances availed her nothing. She was conscious of a great and growing uneasiness; and Mrs. McMurdoch, misunderstanding the expression upon her face, squeezed her arm playfully. "Cheer up, dear," she whispered; "he will be here soon!" Phil knew that her face had flushed deeply. Partly she was glad of her emotions, and partly ashamed. This sweet embarrassment in which there was a sort of pain was a new experience, but one wholly delightful. She laughed, and, accepting the arm of Ormuz Khan, walked into a very English-looking library, followed by Rama Dass and Mrs. McMurdoch. The house, she thought, was very silent, and she found herself wondering why no servants had appeared.

Rama Dass had taken charge of the ladies' cloaks in the hall, and in spite of the typical English environment in which she found herself, Phil sat very near to Mrs. McMurdoch on a settee, scarcely listening to the conversation, and taking no part in it.

For there was a strange and disturbing air of loneliness about Hillside. She would have welcomed the appearance of a butler (Continued on page 26)

E

VERYONE, from United States senators down (and I am not sure that the declivity is very sharp) to doctors, shoe salesmen, and newspaper reporters, is daily engaged in the task of extracting favors by the gentle art of conversation. The world loves to talk, and to talk well it is necessary to have an appreciative audience. Even those exceptions who have acquired a reputation for silence as unbroken as that of the interstellar spaces are really just waiting for the proper sort of listener before whom they may unloose the longimprisoned flood of ideas. There is always a way of exploding the reservoirs of silence and making eager, flowing sentences grow where only lifted eyebrows and cautious monosyllables grew before.

However, in spite of the fact that for some years it has been my business to interview people, and to make them talk, sometimes against their will, I am not in possession of any particular secret or trick which I may confidentially give the reader, thereby fattening the pay envelope and turning life into glittering success. If I had such a secret, I might use it myself, but I am hanged if I would tell the reader about it, anyway. He is getting too all-fired smart as it is. I believe he should be kept in his proper place. So if any advice which will help the reader to profit by the little parcel of experiences which I am handing him creeps into this narrative, it will be purely incidental and inadvertent. If any moral is to be drawn from it, it will take an operation.

I know of no business, however, which sounds so many strings in the scale of life as that of interviewing. One falls to great depths and mounts to dizzy heights. I have been forcibly expelled from the office of a second-rate New York broker, and I have been politely asked by the foreign minister of one of the great powers to prepare a diplomatic note to Germany. I have been treated with condescension and contempt by a small-town alderman, and had an American ambassador offer himself as an interpreter in an interview with a foreign prince.

The interviewer, like the prophet, seems to be not without honor save in his own country. Some strange alchemy takes place when he crosses the Atlantic. At home he is the humble reporter, but once he sets foot in Europe he becomes automatically the eminent foreign correspondent. It is the quickest and easiest route to distinction that I know. When I worked in New York, I was regarded, I think, as a rather low person with whom one did not allow acquaintance to travel beyond a certain cautious toleration. But as soon as I had sent dispatches from London and other foreign capitals, I was asked to furnish the glowing particulars of my life for "Who's Who." The only real difference between the police reporter and the distinguished interviewer of sovereigns is a difference in geography.

If in the interviews that follow it seems that I have struck rather far afield and chosen illustrations remote both in time and place, it is because some

eccentricity in the character of the man interviewed, or some special set of circumstances surrounding the interview, make them stand out in the memory with particular sharpness and displace other more recent ones which have no points of interest worth recording. For I would not have the reader understand that there is in the ordinary newspaper interview anything essentially dramatic. You make your appointment, you ask your questions; they are answered, and that is all there is to it.

This was the case in interviews which I had with the president-elect and the Democratic nominee. Most men in public life in this country have come to accept the attentions of the press as a necessary and rather important part of their daily routine. The whole affair is ordinarily cut and dried. The only thing that impressed me in my talks with Senator Harding and Governor Cox was the directness, the simplicity, and the machinelike smoothness of the interviews. No verbal fencing, finesse, or strategy of any sort was required. There were certain things I wanted to find out, and there were certain things that these men wanted to say for publication.

But the interviews which I want to describe do not fall into this category. Most of them were hard to get, and when I got them it was sometimes a question of what I was going to do with them.

Thawing a Frozen Heart

My first professional interview was with

manufacturer of refrigerating plants, when I was a young reporter serving a New York evening newspaper. This gentleman was being sued for breach of promise by a girl who worked in a florist's shop. There was something in this blighted romance between the man of zero temperatures and the damsel with the floral background that pleasantly tickled the imagination. It sounded like some half-remembered fairy tale with a modern business setting-something about an ice king, half melted by the warm breath of tropical love, and so

on.

At any rate, its diverting flavor of incongruity demanded suitable chronicling, so that the newspaper public might be stirred to laughter. The personal feelings of the refrigerator man were not held to be important. Like many another, he was to be sacrificed on the altar of What the Public Wants.

But whatever tempering influence, might have momentarily softened the stern character of the ice king had disappeared when I visited him. His silence was more frigid than the coldest icebox he had ever constructed. Flanked by his butler, he drove me from his house by a well-executed coup de main, in which words played little part. I went down to his office, and he swore at me. I called him on the telephone, and he declared that he would kill me.

But I had to write a newspaper story. The city editor for whom I worked could excuse murder, arson, and reporters who carried canes-anything except the failure to bring back a story. I would sooner have faced a dozen ice kings armed to the teeth than the city editor without bringing back what I was sent out for.

That must be the excuse for my infamy. In my brief encounters with the refrigerator manufacturer I had learned one thing: The weak point in his armor was the fear of ridicule. So it was necessary to ridicule him.

I wrote the most preposterous imaginative yarn that the fevered brain of a kid reporter could construct, prefacing it, as I really had to, with the statement that it probably did not contain a word of truth. That, of course, gave me leeway to say anything that occurred to me as diverting. The refrigerator man, I related, after many pretty meetings in the flower shop, desired to receive the flower maiden on his home grounds. He did not feel at his best in the heavy-perfumed atmosphere of the greenhouse. Instead of being stimulated, he felt drugged, dispirited, and soggy. He longed for the clean, bracing air of refrigerators.

He therefore led her one day into the coldest one of his new refrigerators. It was cold beyond the flower girl's coldest conception. The primrose which she had lovingly placed in the ice man's buttonhole snapped from its frozen stem and fell with a metallic click to the floor. Half congealed, she would have fallen had the ice king not given her a hand. When they emerged from the refrigerator the assisting hand of the refrigerator man still protectingly grasped her elbow. There were other people about, and the flower girl, blushing with embarrassment,