"I don't seem to remember pulling them out."

"O, I'm quite sure you didn't. You see----"

"Good G.o.d," said Verbeena, "more treachery! Even his whiskers are false!

"Tosh--I might have known--Lillian Russell top hair and Trotsky chin tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs!

"What was the idea of this face screen anyway? So's I wouldn't be able to identify you I suppose after you'd squeezed me dry and threw me over at Orange with all the rest of your amorous alphabet? Was that it, hey?"

"No, by Allah, no," he sobbed, his haughty head tumbled among the silver, black, green, blue, pink and twilight yellow cushions.

She drew forth the hatpin which is so much deadlier than the scarfpin of the species.

"I swear! No--no, Queenie, no!"

"Then why the Hawkshaws?"

"Allah defend me--I cannot tell you--not if you kill me, my sweet wand of affliction!"

"I don't know what I'll do later," said Verbeena. "But anyway, I'm going to make you marry me first.

"Mac!" she called. "Hulda!"

They came humbly.

"Listen to this, both of you!"

"Yea, O Queen," they answered.

"Sheik Amut Ben Butler, you say you are king of this tail-end of the desert?"

"With your kind permission, Verbeena, the First."

"And Parliament and everything?"

"Yes'm."

"Well, Amut, old thing, right now you are in session. Pa.s.s a common law."

"I--I----"

"Stupid--like they have in America. A common law for marriage. If a man and woman agree to live together as husband and wife--that settles it. It goes, hook, line, sinker and breakfast cereals. But it is made all the more binding when there is a written agreement between them.

"All in favor," she said with her eyes firmly on the pa.s.sion-purged orbs of Amut, the non-abductor, "will say 'Aye!'"

"Aye!" said the Sheik Amut Ben Butler in a loud, firm voice.

But biting the while a quivering underlip, he soon burst into tears.

Immediately Verbeena whipped out a paper from the breast of her Norfolk jacket and laid it before him. (That girl had just thought of everything! She even had a fountain pen right ready for him!)

"Sign," she said simply.

The red pepper wasn't all out his eyes by any means, but the broken, quivering creature was able to read:

"I, Sheik Amut Ben Butler of Oasis No. 4 Sahara, and I, Verbeena Mayonnaise of London and lots of other places, on this day do take each other unto each other as man and wife, the party of the first part and the party of the second agreeing not to part unless through the intervention of an undertaker or a divorce judge in which latter case alimony to the tune of fifty horses, ten camels and seventeen tons of dates a month shall be promptly and persistently paid unto the party of the second part together with fifty-fifty on the proceeds of any caravan holdups hereinafter possibly to occur."

"You will see that it's dated yesterday," said Verbeena, "but that's only a technicality."

The Sheik Amut signed. She signed. Spaghetti signed. Hulda hurled her mark on the doc.u.ment.

"There," said Verbeena, "that's that! I'd like to see Lady Speedway open her ole fish-mouth when our caravan pulls into Biscuit again, hey, Amut?"

"Har-har-har!" exclaimed the Sheik with well-timed, impromptu heartiness.

"Spaghetti," next said Verbeena, "you can serve dinner now. And go light on the use of the Italian national flower in your cooking or you'll hear from me.

"Hulda, rip down that bunch of moth-eaten hangings. They're an eyesore. I'll get some decent chintz curtains as soon as we get to town. And pick up all those revolvers and daggers and such truck and throw them into the store tent."

She turned again to the Sheik.

"You'll have to get up and get out early to-morrow, Mutty, dear, because I shall simply have to start housecleaning first thing in the morning."

"As Allah wills, my love."

"Nonsense. I'm sick of this stuff of putting everything up to Allah.

You'll just get up and do it on your own account, do you hear?"

"You betcher," said Sheik Amut Ben Butler right on the dot.

"May I have another cigarette, Verbie?" came the honeyed accents of the Sheik Amut as, dinner finished, coffee was being served.

"Just one. Too much smoking will affect the steadiness of your hand in horse-training. I must look into the condition of the herd myself to-morrow."

"Yes, do," he a.s.sented. "I'm afraid I've been pretty slack but you know how a bachelor is--sporting around a good deal, he is likely to forget business."

She reached for her handbag and got out a tin of candied violet leaves.

She fed him about ten which he chewed as delicately as he might--much more delicately, Verbeena noticed, than the camels chewed gum.

Verbeena was pleased.

"Under the extraordinary circ.u.mstances," she finally stated, "and the legal steps having been duly taken and perfected, there is not in so far as I can see, any valid reason why marital relations may not with perfect propriety eventuate."

"Allah, oh, Allah!" sobbed the Sheik softly beating his turban profusely.