"The leaves turn all sorts of colors." Once more conversation lagged, while Billy feebly wondered how any person could possibly be so dull as this chap.

He made another attempt.
"Beastly place, though, when it rains," he observed.
"Yes, I should imagine so," agreed Mr.Turner.

Great Scott! The voice of McComas saved him from utter imbecility.
"You'll excuse Mr.Turner a moment, won't you, Billy ?" begged McComas pleasantly.

"I want to introduce him to a couple of friends of mine." Billy Westlake bowed his forgiveness of Mr.McComas with fully as much relief as Sam Turner had felt.

Over in the same corner of the porch where he had sat in the afternoon with McComas and Princeman and the elder Westlake, Sam found awaiting them Mr.Cuthbert, of the American Papier-Mache Company, an almost viciously ugly man with a twisted nose and a crooked mouth, who controlled practically all the worth-while papier-mache business of the United States, and Mr.Blackrock, an elderly man with a young toupee and particularly gaunt cheek-bones, who was a corporation lawyer of considerable note.